He was first nominated to be commissioner in September 2015 by President Barack Obama[1] and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in February 2016,[2] serving until January 20, 2017.

[4][5][6] In 2019, he became head of medical strategy at Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc.[7] Califf was born in Anderson, South Carolina.

He attended Duke University, graduating in 1973 summa cum laude[4] and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

[9] He left North Carolina for an internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco and returned in 1980 to Duke to complete a fellowship in cardiology.

Califf is recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the top 10 most cited medical authors, with more than 1,200 peer-reviewed publications.

[14] From 2013 to 2014 he was paid a total of $52,796; the greatest amount being $6,450 from Merck Sharp & Dohme, followed by Amgen, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Daiichi Sankyo, Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.

[13] Califf's ties to the pharmaceutical industry were criticized by the magazine The American Prospect,[17] and Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin, who announced their intention to vote against his 2021 renomination.

[citation needed] On November 12, 2021, President Biden announced he was nominating Califf to return as head of the FDA.