The oath ,,First do no harm'' is there for a reason: sadly for most new therapies, the alternative of using the old therapy is better in 99% of the cases. The FDA is there to make sure that companies find the remaining 1%.

The big difference here is that the speed of finding the right drug can make or break trillions of dollars and thousands of lives, so it's critical for the FDA to focus on the COVID-19 illness.