Anna Abram is deputy commissioner for policy, planning, legislation and analysis for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. She plays a critical role in overseeing the development and implementation of key policy initiatives and provides strategic policy direction to advance the FDA’s mission and vision of protecting and promoting public health.
Prior to being appointed to this senior leadership position, Abram served in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is a respected FDA policy thought leader with more than 13 years of health care policy experience, including more than a decade of working on health care policy in the U.S. Senate. She served as the long-time health policy director and senior advisor to Senator Richard Burr at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and was actively involved in a range of health care issues under both the Senate HELP and Finance Committees. Her tenure at the Senate HELP Committee was particularly distinguished by her contributions to advancing bipartisan FDA and medical and public health preparedness and response legislation, including securing multiple patient-centered drug and device provisions in the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act and 21st Century Cures laws.
Abram has played key roles in advancing legislation to support innovation on behalf of patients and that strengthen our nation’s public health. She spearheaded the bipartisan negotiation and enactment of the most significant security enhancements to our nation’s pharmaceutical supply chain in the past 25 years through the Drug Quality and Security Act. She also was instrumental in strengthening our nation’s medical countermeasure work and medical and public health preparedness and response programs through the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Reauthorization Act of 2013.
She was previously appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as an associate director at the Domestic Policy Council at The White House, where she coordinated the development and implementation of health care policy issues, including food, drug and public health policy. She coordinated the White House-led, interagency policy process to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2008.
Abram graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania.
