Brian A. King is the CTP's new director. Credit: Robert Califf’s Twitter.
Brian King succeeds Mitch Zeller as director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP). King will take over from Michele Mital, acting CTP director, on July 3. Mital is CTP’s deputy director since 2018. King has a history of being a vocal opponent of vaping products.
“Dr. King brings extensive and impressive expertise in tobacco prevention and control and has broad familiarity with FDA from his more than 10-year tenure at CDC,” said FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, via Twitter announcing the news of King’s appointment.
Currently King is deputy director for research translation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) within the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. He holds a doctorate of philosophy in epidemiology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2010. King has little to no regulatory experience, having worked mostly for CDC, starting from epidemic intelligence service officer to senior scientific advisor, then to his current role, all within OSH.
Prior to joining OSH/CDC, King worked as a research affiliate in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. His primary research focus during this time was related to tobacco prevention and control. His work over 15 years has been focused on this same area.
King was also senior official for CDC’s emergency response to the cases of illnesses caused by the spread of tainted THB cartridges in 2019, which CDC initially named “e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI)”.