WASHINGTON • Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is stepping down after nearly two years leading the agency’s response to a host of public health challenges, including the opioid epidemic, rising drug prices and underage vaping.

Gottlieb cited “the challenge of being apart from my family” in Connecticut when announcing his departure Tuesday in a note to FDA staff. He’ll leave next month.

President Donald Trump tapped Gottlieb in 2017 to “cut red tape” at the FDA. But Gottlieb bucked expectations by pushing the agency to expand its authorities in several key ways, including an unprecedented effort to make cigarettes less addictive by requiring lower nicotine levels .

The 46-year-old physician and former conservative pundit advanced his agenda while managing to maintain the support of the president, Republicans and key Democrats in Congress.

Still, he departs with his most sweeping plans unfinished, including the initiative to make cigarettes less addictive.

“Scott deserves very strong credit for his stance on tobacco, I only wish he would have seen some of those efforts through to fruition,” said Dr. David Kessler, who led the FDA from 1990 to 1997.

“In the end you have to bring those things home.”

Harvard University professor Daniel Carpenter said Gottlieb benefited from comparisons with more unconventional, anti-regulatory Trump appointees.

“He could govern from a place of moderation and get all the more credit because so many other agencies and positions under the Trump administration were either falling apart or vacant,” said Carpenter, who has written extensively on the FDA.

Scott Gottlieb

J. Scott Applewhite