Hoping for Allies Among Trump’s Health Picks, Pharma Faces Hostility

Drug company executives had hoped that a second Trump administration would be staffed by friendly health policy officials who would reduce regulation and help their industry boom.

But some of President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed nominees are instead alarming drug makers, according to interviews with people in the industry.

For health secretary, Mr. Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic with no medical or public health training who has accused drug companies of the “mass poisoning” of Americans.

Mr. Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman from Florida who raised doubts about vaccines and pushed to move most vaccine safety research from the agency.

And Mr. Trump’s choice to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the former television host Dr. Mehmet Oz, has scant experience in managing a large bureaucracy like the one he may now oversee; the agency is in charge of health care programs that cover more than 150 million Americans.

In Mr. Trump’s first term as president, pharmaceutical executives largely cheered his health policy nominees. They had ties to the moderate wing of the Republican Party and decades of conventional experience, including at major drug companies.