> The news of McKinsey’s opioid work apparently did little to dampen the FDA’s enthusiasm for the consultancy. In March 2019, just after the news broke, the agency signed a new contract with McKinsey — extending the firm’s multiyear effort to help the FDA “modernize” the process by which it regulates new drugs.

I agree too. I think the FDA hires them exactly because of their clients. They want to modernize their processes, they need intel from industry. How else does McKinsey get this intel besides working with industry?

It’s very much a meet in the middle process. The FDA doesn’t want to completely disrupt industry and they’d like to know their new regulations are able to be implemented and probably also care to some degree how painful they are for industry. However as regulators, they could never Work side by side with the industry in this effort.

It wasn’t disclosed likely because it was part of the value and McKinsey, through conversation with FDA, thought it was understood. FDA hired them again, so I’m interpreting that as a sign of them not actually thinking a COI occurred, or a material lack of disclosure.