CDRH Names Veteran Public Health Officer to Lead Postmarket Office

The U.S. FDA has chosen a veteran public health officer to spearhead its device postmarket surveillance programs. Gregory Pappas joined the agency in February as associate director for national device surveillance in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health’s Office of Surveillance and Biometrics.

In a Feb. 9 staff memo announcing the appointment, OSB Director Tom Gross said Pappas will lead efforts to implement priorities for a robust national postmarket surveillance system laid out in two recent white papers. These include modernizing adverse event reporting and analysis, developing new ways to generate, synthesize and analyze evidence, integrating unique device identifiers into electronic health records, and promoting development of national and international device registries.

Pappas has worked in the public and private sectors, as well as academia. He served on the executive boards of UNICEF and the Pan American Health Organization, and was on the U.S. delegation to the World Health Assembly. From 2011 to 2013, Pappas directed the District of Columbia’s programs on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.

Prior to that, he was a major architect of President George W. Bush’s AIDS policy. Pappas holds an MD and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

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