President Trump has repeatedly slammed pharmaceutical companies for “getting away with murder” on soaring drug prices, but he and his nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration have pledged to ease industry regulations and speed approvals for medicines and other consumer products.

The nominee, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, has spent the bulk of his career working in the drug and health care industry, which experts say raises the potential for myriad conflicts of interest. If confirmed to head the F.D.A., he would wield considerable power over companies and investment firms that have paid him millions of dollars over the years.

From 2013 to 2015, for example, Dr. Gottlieb received more than $150,000 to advise Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a company whose two approved drugs are seen as breakthrough treatments for cystic fibrosis but carry list prices of more than $250,000 a year. He’s the acting chief executive of Cell Biotherapy, an early-stage cancer biotech firm that he helped found. He has served for years as a consultant to pharmaceutical giants like GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb and is paid by other companies for his expertise.

Dr. Gottlieb plans to recuse himself for one year from any agency decisions involving about 20 health care companies he worked with, according to an ethics agreement made public Wednesday. But that is unlikely to mollify critics who argue that someone with such close industry relationships should not be in charge of an agency whose mission is to protect consumers and uphold safety standards for products from lipstick to lifesaving cancer therapies.