Featured Physician Executive: Richard Pazdur, M.D.

This week, our featured physician executive is Richard Pazdur, M.D.

Richard Pazdur, M.D. has a distinguished career in clinical and academic oncology in addition to his experience as a regulatory expert at FDA. A native of Indiana, he obtained his M.D. from Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, where he also trained in internal medicine. He was a fellow in oncology at Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center at the University of Chicago. Dr. Pazdur has served as a practicing oncologist, researcher, and teacher at Wayne State University, where he was director of the medical oncology fellowship program, and for many years at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, where he was a tenured Professor of Medicine and Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs. He joined FDA in 1999 as the Director of the Division of Oncology Drug Products and was named Director of the Office of Oncology Drug Products in April 2005. He has authored over 160 peer-reviewed papers in the field of oncology, has written chapters for over 30 oncology textbooks, and is the editor of two standard reference oncology texts.



Dr. Pazdur is well known in the oncology community as a strong scientific leader who is committed to the care and treatment of patients with cancer. He is a member of many oncology professional societies and has served on numerous local, state, national, and international committees focused on cancer treatment, drug development, patient education, and chemoprevention. Since coming to FDA, Dr. Pazdur has collaborated extensively with the leaders at the National Cancer Institute on many aspects of facilitating sound and rapid product development for cancer treatment and prevention.