As the year draws to a close, I want to reflect on FDA’s many accomplishments in these previous 12 months, the last nine of which it has been my pleasure to serve as Acting Commissioner. FDA has broad responsibilities – indeed, we are tasked with overseeing products that account for about 20 cents of the consumer dollar — so we work on a wide range of topics in any given year. In this and two additional blog posts over the coming days I’ll cover some of our key accomplishments in 2015. Each blog will examine a different area of FDA’s work. This first post will focus on medical product innovation – our role in making safe, effective and innovative products available to patients who need them.