DLA Piper continues to grow the FDA Regulatory team within its Regulatory and Government Affairs practice with the addition of Sharon Lindan Mayl, former senior advisor for policy at the Food and Drug Administration. Mayl joins as a partner in the firm’s Washington, DC office.
As a prominent and highly experienced former senior FDA official with more than 25 years of experience at the agency, Mayl has a deep wealth of knowledge in the areas of food safety, nutrition, dietary supplements, cannabis products and cosmetics. She will apply her high-level experience working within the FDA to further strengthen the firm’s rapidly growing Food, Beverage and Consumer Goods sector.
During her time as a senior advisor in the Commissioner’s Office, Mayl advised several Deputy Commissioners on a wide range of regulatory, legislative and policy issues. Reaching the highest levels of the FDA, Mayl spearheaded efforts across the agency’s various components – such as the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) – to develop regulations and strategic initiatives for the FDA’s food programs and beyond. She played a leading role in implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act and developing strategic approaches to imports and cannabis policy.
Mayl also regularly represented the agency in meetings with senior officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, federal and state regulatory agencies, foreign governments, industry representatives and consumer and public health groups, among other external stakeholders. In these cross-organizational efforts, Mayl established herself as a top government official in her space and forged close and cooperative relationships to achieve solutions to novel, controversial and complex issues.
“Sharon is a well-respected leader and a coalition and consensus-builder,” said Edward “Smitty” Smith, chair of the firm’s Regulatory and Government Affairs practice. “She has incomparable experience in the food, beverage, and consumer goods sector, and her exhaustive and nuanced knowledge of food safety and policy will be an invaluable asset in bolstering our FDA regulatory subgroup.”
In her decades of public service, Mayl has received numerous awards and distinctions. She is a recipient of the Commissioner’s Award of Excellence, an FDA-sponsored honor highlighting an individual’s outstanding contributions to food safety and imports.
Mayl’s arrival comes at the heels of notable growth for the firm’s FDA Regulatory team. This year alone, it deepened the strength of its bench with the recent arrivals of partner Bethany Hills (New York) and of
