The Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator has resigned after being accused of soliciting a bribe and tanking a company’s stock as part of an alleged revenge plot against a former colleague.

Dr. George Tidmarsh, who led the FDA’s drug division, was accused in a lawsuit Sunday of retaliating against pharmaceutical investor Kevin Tang starting in 2019, when Tang asked him to resign as CEO from La Jolla Pharmaceutical, where Tang was the board chair.

Tidmarsh, however, says he was ousted because he raised concerns last week about a new program to rapidly approve new drugs, The New York Times reported.

The FDA falls within the purview of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, which has been plagued with scandal since the one-time anti-vaccine crusader

See Full Page