Vinay Prasad, the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) chief medical and scientific officer, will leave the agency at the end of April.[1][2][3] FDA Commissioner Marty Makary made the announcement in an email to staff on March 6, adding that Prasad would return to the University of California, San Francisco, where he is a professor of epidemiology.[1][2] Prasad had already resigned once in July 2025 after three months on the job due to a dispute over Sarepta Therapeutics' Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, but was reinstated two weeks later.[1][2][3] His departure comes amid disputes with pharmaceutical firms, including the rejection of uniQure's Huntington's gene therapy, where the FDA changed its mind on a single-arm study plan.[1][3] Another dispute involved a letter from Praser that refused to review Moderna's application for an mRNA flu vaccine due to the clinical trial design, but the decision was later overturned.[1][2][3] Prasad came to the FDA on a year-long sabbatical from UCSF to implement four reforms: a requirement for one pivotal study instead of two, national priority reviews, a risk-based framework for COVID-19 vaccines, and a framework for ultra-rare diseases.[1][3] The FDA will appoint a successor before his departure.[1][2]