5 questions facing the FDA in 2021

Few government agencies were as front and center in the public eye last year as the Food and Drug Administration, which came under immense pressure to authorize unproven drugs as the world grappled with the pandemic and conducted high-stakes reviews of two coronavirus vaccines.

As COVID-19 cases continue to soar in the U.S., most of those pressures haven't gone away. But the inauguration next week of Joseph Biden as president will almost certainly bring new management to the agency, a change that can often result in policy shifts both subtle and far-reaching.