Vinay Prasad

Vinay Kashyap Prasad is an American hematologist-oncologist and health researcher, who served as the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research from May 2025 to April 2026 at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and is the author of the books Ending Medical Reversal (with Adam Cifu, 2015), and Malignant (2020), both from Johns Hopkins University Press. Prasad adopted a contrarian stance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, using social media to spread misinformation with florid rhetoric. In May 2025, during the second Trump administration, he was appointed head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Following criticism of the FDA's decisions on multiple vaccine reviews, reports appeared that he would leave his position at the end of April 2026.