Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University-trained physician and economist, is likely to be chosen by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the US Health Agency, suggested reports.
According to a report by the Washington Post, Jay Bhattacharya is likely to be picked by Trump as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH funds medical research through grants to researchers across the nation and conducts its own research. It has a USD 48 billion budget.
The Stanford-trained physician and economist met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump's pick to lead HHS this week and impressed him with his ideas to overhaul NIH, the report said. Trump picked Kennedy earlier this month to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States' top health agency which oversees NIH and other health agencies.
Who Is Jay Bhattacharya?
Jayanta Jay Bhattacharya was born in the Indian city of Kolkata in 1968. By profession, Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research.
He has earned an MD and PhD in economics from the Stanford University.
As per Stanford's official website, his research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics.
His recent research focuses on the epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic.
Jay Bhattacharya's Plan For US Health Sector
Bhattacharya has called for shifting the agency's focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, the WaPo report added.
Earlier, Kennedy has said he'd pause drug development and infectious disease research to shift the focus to chronic diseases. He'd like to keep NIH funding from researchers with conflicts of interest, and criticized the agency in 2017 for what he said was not doing enough research into the role of vaccines in autism, an idea that has long been debunked