21 U.S.C. § 399a — Office of the Chief Scientist

(a) Establishment; appointment
The Secretary^* must set up an office inside the Office of the Commissioner^*, called the Office of the Chief Scientist. The Secretary must appoint someone to lead it as Chief Scientist.

(b) Duties of the Office
This Office must oversee and coordinate the FDA's own in-house ("intramural") research, making sure it stays high-quality and focused on regulation. It must track the research money each FDA center or science office awards, and coordinate that spending so it does not duplicate research already funded by the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food^* and Drug^* Administration.

The Office must build and push for a budget to support this in-house research. It must create a peer-review process to judge that research's quality.

The Office must also seek out and gather research ideas from across the FDA. It does this through an advisory board made up of FDA employees. That board must include representatives from every center and science-based office in the Commissioner's office, plus experts in trial design, epidemiology, population data, drug-safety monitoring, basic science, and public health.

Finally, the Office must develop ways to measure drug safety after a product goes on the market. These measures must be just as precise and rigorous as the ones already used before a product goes on the market.