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Thomas Cosgrove

Tom Cosgrove is a partner in Covington’s Food, Drug and Device Practice Group. He joined Covington in 2017 from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he was a senior official charged with ensuring the quality of drugs and therapeutic biologics marketed to U.S. patients. Tom brings a wealth of experience to bear in helping clients navigate the complex world of pharmaceutical compliance and enforcement in the United States and around the globe.

At FDA, Tom held senior leadership positions within the Office of Compliance in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), including leading the organization as Acting Director in 2016. Beginning in 2014, he led the Office of Manufacturing Quality (OMQ), where he was responsible for CDER’s enforcement activities covering current good manufacturing practice (CGMP) and drug quality. In this role, Tom was responsible for setting FDA’s CGMP enforcement priorities and for clearing warning letters, import alerts, and referrals for civil and criminal enforcement. He also played a central role in the FDA's deliberations concerning the approval of marketing applications submitted by companies with manufacturing compliance challenges.

As Acting Director of CDER Compliance in 2016, Tom oversaw OMQ as well as the offices responsible for enforcing FDA’s requirements for drug approval and labeling, human drug compounding, drug supply chain security and integrity, and clinical trials and bioequivalence studies.

He is a frequent speaker at conferences and trainings focused on drug quality, compliance, and enforcement at home and abroad.

On February 19, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Deregulatory Initiative” (the EO). The stated purpose of the EO is to advance the Administration’s policies of focusing executive enforcement actions on regulations “squarely authorized by federal statute” and deconstructing the administrative state in order to achieve the stated goal of “[e]nding Federal overreach and restoring the constitutional separation of powers.” The EO appears to present opportunities for FDA-regulated stakeholders to identify certain regulations, guidance, and enforcement actions for recission or termination. Likewise, certain stakeholders may face changes in the competitive balance with competitors if the EO causes FDA to stop enforcing regulations that currently prohibit the marketing of certain products. 

Key Provisions of the EO

In order to effectuate the stated policy, the EO provides for 1) the rescission of existing regulations across federal agencies, 2) the de-prioritization and termination of certain ongoing enforcement actions, and 3) the review of new regulations by members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA):

  1. “Rescinding Unlawful Regulations and Regulations That Undermine the National Interest”: The EO directs agency heads, in coordination with their DOGE team lead and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director, to, within the next 60 days, review all agency regulations and identify regulations deemed to be 1) unconstitutional, 2) unlawful, 3) based on “anything other than the best reading of the underlying statutory authority or prohibition,” 4) implicating “matters of social, political, or economic significance that are not authorized by clear statutory authority,” 5) excessively costly, 6) “harmful to the national interest,” or 7) overly burdensome for small businesses or entrepreneurs. Notably, and consistent with the Administration’s other recent deregulatory actions, the EO defines “regulations” to include guidance documents. The EO states that the Administrator of OIRA, in consultation with agency heads, will then develop a Unified Regulatory Agenda to rescind or modify the identified regulations. Pursuant to this mandate, FDA will likely be expected to conduct a broad review of its regulations and guidance documents over the next 60 days and identify items that may merit rescission.
  2. “Enforcement Discretion to Ensure Lawful Governance”: The EO grants agency heads discretion to “preserve their limited enforcement resources” by 1) de-prioritizing enforcement of regulations that are “based on anything other than the best reading of a statute” or “that go beyond the powers vested in the Federal Government by the Constitution”; and 2) to terminate ongoing regulatory enforcement proceedings which “do not comply with the Constitution, laws, or Administration policy.” This, in turn, could pose significant implications for both future and ongoing FDA enforcement actions. Under the EO, even long-standing precedents that provide the foundation for FDA’s enforcement activities could be scrutinized if the Administration considers them to be not based on the current “best” reading of a statute. In practical terms, this could lead to the truncation or effective deletion of certain long-standing regulatory requirements across all product areas regulated by FDA. 
  3. “Promulgation of New Regulations”: The EO requires that agency heads consult with their DOGE Team Leads and the Administrator of OIRA on potential new regulations as soon as practicable and instructs DOGE Team Leads and OIRA to evaluate potential new regulations against certain criteria outlined in the EO.

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