Vinay Prasad: Education, Career, and Contributions to Healthcare
Vinayak "Vinay" Kashyap Prasad, MD, MPH, is a physician and health policy expert whose career spans clinical practice, academic research, and regulatory leadership. He is known for his critical examination of medical evidence, particularly in oncology, and his commentary on health policy, medical ethics, and drug development.
Early Life and Education
Raised in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, Prasad's academic journey began at Michigan State University (MSU). In 2005, he graduated summa cum laude with a double major in philosophy and physiology. He took courses in health care ethics and delivered the commencement address to the College of Arts and Letters on behalf of the Philosophy Department. He credits his education at MSU with shaping his career and values the connections he made there. “Doctors make a lot of decisions, and some of those surely help patients, other decisions are based on weak evidence, and some recommendations run counter to the best studies,” said Prasad, ’05. “I’m a medical oncologist who does research on policy and the evidence base of medicine. What I do directly follows from the classes I took in college,” he said. “I met some of my closest friends in the Honors College and MSU, and we have stayed in touch over the years,” he said. “But, beyond this the experiences I remember most from MSU were the study abroad opportunities. I went to Nicaragua with Dr. (Gerald) Urquhart, and I spent a summer in Costa Rica taking a class from Dr. Fred Gifford. “Through the Honors College, I met a lot of interesting people,” he said. “I had dinner with Dr. Brian Greene, the theoretical physicist. I had lunch with Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Laureate.
Prasad continued his education, earning his medical degree from the University of Chicago in 2009. He completed a residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University in 2012, where he received the Gerald Grumet award for best resident teacher. He was certified in internal medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 2012 and earned a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in 2014. He completed a fellowship in oncology at the National Cancer Institute and in haematology at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 2015. During his time at the US National Institutes of Health, he was named Chief Fellow and completed a cancer prevention fellowship.
Academic Career and Research
From 2015 to 2020, Prasad was assistant and then associate professor at the Oregon Health & Science University. He later joined the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), as a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He also worked clinically at San Francisco General Hospital. His specialty is hematology and oncology. Before entering academia, Dr. Prasad had a Fellowship in Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute and prior to that he was a Fellow in Oncology at the National Institutes of Health.
Prasad's research focuses on cancer drug development, medical ethics, diagnostic testing, and evidence-based practice. He has published extensively in leading medical journals, contributing significantly to discussions on these topics. His work often highlights the need for better evidence before adopting new medical interventions. He is the author of over 500 academic articles & letters.
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Prasad has won several teaching awards, including the 2017 Craig Okada Award for best teacher in the Hematology Oncology Fellowship program, the 2018 faculty mentorship award from the internal medicine residency, the 2019 J. David Bristow Award, given by the graduating medical students to the faculty member, “who exemplifies the ideals of the true physician as he or she conducts clinical practice with patients and colleagues.” And the Excellence in Research/Scholarship Mentoring Award as voted by the Internal Medicine Residents.
Author and Public Speaker
Dr. Prasad is the author of the books, “Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer” and “Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives.” Dr. Prasad and Dr. Adam Cifu (University of Chicago) are authors of Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). Dr. Prasad is the author of the book Malignant (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).
He was the host of the oncology podcast “Plenary Session” and ran The Drug Development Letter. He is also a frequent speaker at scientific and medical conferences, presenting his research and perspectives on healthcare issues. Prasad hosts the podcast Plenary Session[8][9][10] and blogs at MedPage Today.[11]
Work on Medical Reversals
Prasad has contributed significantly to the study of medical reversals, which are instances where established medical practices are later found to be ineffective or harmful. In 2011, Prasad and colleagues published a research letter in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Charles Bankhead, a senior editor at MedPageToday, covered the topic, outlining the paper's primary point, which was the high prevalence of research articles demonstrating findings that deviated from the accepted standard of treatment at the time. Separately, "Retraction Watch" reported on Prasad's personal remarks about the paper, saying "For a long time, we were interested by what we believe to be a pervasive problem in modern medicine.
Matthew Hoffman, writing in 2012 for MedPageToday's KevinMD covered a paper by Prasad and colleagues on "When to abandon ship" when it comes to failing medical practices and treatments.[21][22] Hoffman builds on the authors' proposed barriers to market entrance, such as evidence of effectiveness in large randomized controlled studies before broad usage, and links them to the insidious aspects of healthcare, such as profit and status. In 2013, Prasad and colleagues addressed the necessity for randomized controlled trials for the inferior vena cava filter (VCF) despite the intervention's bio-plausibility. The authors suggest that since the intervention has known adverse effects but an uncertain benefit, well-designed studies are necessary to shed light on the intervention's efficacy.
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In 2013, Prasad's paper A Decade of Reversal: An Analysis of 146 Contradicted Practices was published;[25] The article was covered in a piece by The Huffington Post, which highlights a key lesson from the paper: patients should become more involved in their health care decisions rather than assuming a prescribed medication or device is beneficial.[26] Patients may do this by asking their physician pertinent questions, such as what patient outcomes the intervention improved. Additionally, the article discusses the concept of healthcare cost. With growing anxiety about the expense of healthcare, utilizing limited resources on questionable medical practices with a weak evidence base threatens to jeopardize both the healthcare economy and patient health.
FDA Service
Prasad was appointed Director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) on May 6, 2025. As director of CBER, Dr. Prasad supervises the FDA’s work regulating biological products for human use under applicable federal laws. CBER works to advance the public health by ensuring that biological products are safe and effective and available to those who need them and to provide the public with information to promote their safe and appropriate use. He was later named the FDA's Chief Medical and Science Officer. As Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Dr. Prasad advises the FDA Commissioner and other senior officials on cross-cutting and emerging medical and scientific issues impacting regulatory science and public health. He provides strategic input and leadership on trans-center working groups and initiatives, ensuring scientific consistency and integration across FDA centers and builds partnerships with academic, governmental, and industry stakeholders. Dr. Prasad also provides senior medical and scientific input to the FDA Commissioner on cross-center medical policy and regulatory decisions, and acts as a senior medical and scientific representative at national, international, or advisory committee meetings and forums related to public health, regulatory science, and innovation.
His appointment to the FDA drew attention, with biotech stocks falling more than 5% amid the news. In a social media post earlier this year, Prasad wrote, “The FDA did nothing to speed gene therapy, other than talk about how they will use uncontrolled endpoints. But we want to speed effective gene therapy, not ineffective gene therapy.
According to a spokesperson from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Prasad resigned on July 29, 2025, to return to California and spend more time with his family. The resignation followed internal debate around the FDA's response to safety concerns involving the gene therapy drug Elevidys, manufactured by Sarepta Therapeutics.
In late July 2025 Prasad quit after political provocateur Laura Loomer said he was a “progressive leftist saboteur”.[notes 1] He resumed his role in August 2025, after less than two weeks away.[48] In explaining the absence, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary stated that "He [Prasad] saw some media headlines and didn’t want to be a distraction", and that Prasad was convinced to return. On August 29, 2025, Prasad demanded of YouTube that six of his critic Jonathan Howard's videos be taken down.
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Views on Public Health and COVID-19 Response
Prasad has been a vocal commentator on public health issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic response. In January 2022, the conservative periodical City Journal published an opinion piece by Prasad in which he attempted to demonstrate that the American public health organizations were not being honest in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Writing for Science-Based Medicine, epidemiologist Lynn Shaffer criticized Prasad's article for the various "mistruths" it contained about face masks as a COVID-19 mitigation measure, for example the unevidenced claim that mask wearing was stunting children's language development. Bioethicist Arthur L. Caplan said that Prasad's arguments were specious and ignorant, and science historian Robert N.
Publications
Dr. Prasad is the author of over 500 academic articles & letters.
- Prasad, Vinayak; Cifu, Adam S. (2015). Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives. doi:10.1353/book.49286. ISBN 978-1-4214-5108-4.
- Prasad, Vinayak (2020). Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer. doi:10.1353/book.74312. ISBN 978-1-4214-3764-4.
Disclosures
Disclosures. (Research funding) Arnold Ventures (Royalties) Johns Hopkins Press, MedPage, YouTube, Substack (Consulting) Optum Health. (Other) Plenary Session podcast has Patreon backers.
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