DEC. 18–ROCKVILLE, MD–Outgoing biologics director Kathryn Zoon will leave the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January in the wake of the agency’s decision to shift some regulatory oversight from the Center for Biologics Evaulation and Research (CBER) to the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).

Zoon will join the National Cancer Institute as principal deputy of the Center for Cancer Research.

“It would be wrong to say I am leaving because of the decision to transfer some regulatory responsibility away from CBER,” Zoon told co-workers in a recent memo. “It would be just as wrong to say that decision had no influence on my decision to leave FDA.”

According to drug industry observers, Zoon’s role may have been reduced as part of an agency reorganization.

While the FDA said no employees would lose their jobs, about 150 Biologics Center employees will move to CDER. Many senior researchers in the Office of Therapeutic Research and Review (OTRR) have pubically said they will leave the agency if it moves OTRR to CDER.