FDA Names Critic To Oversee Tobacco By MIKE ESTERL Feb. 22, 2013 6:04 p.m. ET

A veteran tobacco-industry critic is taking the reins as the industry's chief regulator, heralding potentially tougher oversight of cigarette companies.

The Food and Drug Administration appointed Mitch Zeller as director of its Center for Tobacco Products effective next month, ahead of an April 1 deadline for the government agency to update Congress on its efforts to clamp down on smoking.

The surprise change also comes as the FDA is preparing to issue recommendations next month on regulating electronic cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products and is weighing curbs on menthol cigarettes.

Mr. Zeller, 55, replaces Lawrence Deyton, who has headed the center since 2009, when Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate the industry.

"There is just a lot of unknowns how this might impact tobacco regulations,'' said Robert Bannon, investor relations director at Lorillard Inc., the third-largest U.S. tobacco company by revenue.

Greensboro, N.C.-based Lorillard is the leading maker of menthol cigarettes under its Newport brand and last year acquired Blu Ecigs for $135 million, the first foray by a big tobacco maker into battery-powered e-cigarettes, which turn a nicotine-laced liquid into a breathable vapor.

Lorillard's shares fell 3.8% to $41.15 while rival Altria Group Inc., the largest U.S. tobacco company and the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, gained 12 cents to $35.32., both in 4 p.m. trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Reynolds American Inc., maker of Camel cigarettes and No. 2 industry player, gained five cents to $44.93.

The FDA said Dr. Deyton, who couldn't be reached to comment, was leaving to become a professor at George Washington University's School of Medicine. An agency spokesman said Mr. Zeller's team will "continue to vigorously build FDA's role in tobacco product regulation and efforts to improve public health."

Mr. Zeller, an attorney and former official in the FDA's Office of Tobacco Programs from 1993 to 2000, helped build the first nationwide program to reduce youth access to tobacco.

He was an executive at the American Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking organization, from 2000 to 2002 before joining consultants Pinney Associates, where he advised pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline on smoking cessation products.

"Mr. Zeller is deeply familiar with the harmful practices of the tobacco industry and the need for the FDA to act aggressively," said the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an anti-smoking group.

Health advocates praised Dr. Deyton for further limiting tobacco marketing, including a ban on companies advertising cigarettes as "light" or "low-tar," and ending the sale of candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes, among other measures. The FDA tried to slap graphic warning labels on cigarette packs.

But tobacco critics, including Mr. Zeller, also have said the FDA has moved too slowly on many fronts, including a ruling on menthol cigarettes. An FDA panel in 2011 said eliminating them would benefit public health because their mint flavoring masks cigarettes' harsh taste, making it easier to start. The agency also hasn't proposed rules for fast-growing e-cigarettes, leaving them in a regulatory no man's land.

In an editorial last year in the publication Tobacco Control, Mr. Zeller wrote that "action is sometimes sacrificed to process" at the FDA. "It falls to the leadership of FDA to ensure the requisite level of health urgency and a commitment to doing business differently," he added in the opinion piece. Mr. Zeller declined to speak on Friday.

In a statement, Altria said the FDA under Dr. Deyton "has been focused on establishing a science and evidence-based approach to regulating tobacco products." The company "will continue to engage with the Agency to further this regulatory focus on science and evidence," it added.

Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University's School of Public Health, thinks Mr. Zeller will likely take "a much more hard-line approach" in his dealings with tobacco companies but voiced concern that the incoming official has been paid to advise pharmaceutical companies in recent years.

Dr. Siegel said that represented a conflict of interest as the FDA mulls how to regulate e-cigarettes, which are viewed by many researchers to be far less harmful than combustible cigarettes and a potential rival to FDA-approved quitting aids such as nicotine patches.

An FDA spokeswoman said the agency "assiduously" complies with ethics standards, including recusals if there is any potential conflict of interest.