Or so it would seem. The agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research is about halfway through hiring a planned 663 employees and many of the new hires are working for OND, according to The RPM Report. Of the 309 new employees, 108 now work at OND. For some added perspective, CDER employed about 2,250 people as of last month.

Presumably, the number of new OND hires might soothe anxious pharma execs, who have been carping the agency is too cautious and slow in approving new meds. Some review divisions are benefiting from the hiring frenzy more than others, though, depending on the previous level of understaffing, such as gastroenterology products, which hired 16 people.

Meanwhile, RPM notes some top-level FDA scientists have left for industry, including Robert Meyer, the former head of the Office of Drug Evaluation II, who joined Merck, and Mark Goldberger, the former director of the Office of Antimicrobial Products, is working for Abbott. Both departures came just weeks after CDER director Steve Galson said he would leave to become surgeon general.