President-elect Donald J. Trump is reaching beyond traditional medical experts in his search for a new Food and Drug Administration commissioner, scheduling meetings for the FDA job with two Silicon Valley investors backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

The two are James O’Neill, a managing director of the investment firm Mithril Capital Management, and Balaji S. Srinivasan, a venture capital board member who founded the genetic-counseling firm Counsyl Inc.

Neither one is a medical doctor, which has been a traditional qualification for FDA commissioners. Mr. Srinivasan holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Of the two, Mr. O’Neill would appear to face the more difficult road to getting approval from the Senate, because his stated views run counter to existing FDA law and regulation. In a 2014 speech, he took the position that drugs shouldn’t have to be proven effective before putting them on the market.

“We should reform FDA so there is approving drugs after their sponsors have demonstrated safety—and let people start using them, at their own risk, but not much risk, of safety,” he said at a conference called Rejuvenation Biology. “Let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized.”