Andy von Eschenbach pooh-poohs criticism. Instead, he’s deflecting criticism of his agency’s coziness with drug and device makers, and defended a recent decision not to require new warning labels on Glaxo’s Avandia, which may substantially raise the risk of heart attack, according to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In fact, Andy says close cooperation between government scientists and drugmakers is important, and that it will eventually produce safer medicines for consumers. He made his remarks during a press conference aimed at explaining the FDA’s efforts to make drug development faster and more predictable. He argues the FDA is collaborating with private companies and academics to improve on the current drug research process, in which roughly 9 out of every 10 prospective drugs fail to make it to market.

“We want drug companies to get it right from the very beginning…This is a collaboration, but it’s not just a collaboration with drug companies, it’s a collaboration with academia and with other agencies,” Andy tells the Associated Press. “Everyone is an important stake holder and that’s the point: we need to not be exclusive of any one of the important parts of the collaborative effort.”