Namandjé Bumpus, the Food and Drug Administration’s second-in-command, will depart the regulator at the end of the year, according to an email FDA Commissioner Robert Califf sent to agency staff on Tuesday.
Bumpus has served as principal deputy commissioner since February 2024, when she succeeded longtime agency leader Janet Woodcock. Previously, Bumpus was the FDA’s chief scientist.
In his email, Califf credited Bumpus with helping to plan and manage the FDA’s recent reorganization, which he described as the largest in the agency’s history. Bumpus also led efforts to modernize the FDA’s laboratories and expanded the role of the chief scientist’s office, Califf said.
“Since Dr. Bumpus arrived at the FDA and assumed the role of Chief Scientist, she has made enormous contributions across the agency and had an extraordinary impact on the growth, effectiveness and overall success of the agency,” Califf wrote in his email.
Bumpus informed Califf of her plans to leave earlier this month. Her departure is at least the second of a high-ranking FDA official to be announced since the election of President Donald Trump. In late November, Doug Throckmorton, the agency’s deputy center director for regulatory programs, made public plans to retire in early January.
Prior to joining the FDA, Bumpus was a professor and department chair at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. There, she focused her research on drug metabolism and the effects of medicines on humans and infectious pathogens.
“Being a civil servant, working shoulder-to-shoulder with all of you, has been one of the greatest honors of my life,” Bumpus wrote in an email to staff that followed Califf’s.
Califf made no mention of immediate plans to replace Bumpus in his email. President-elect Trump has nominated Martin Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and author, to replace Califf as FDA head.
