Dear Readers,
The science of making medicines is a lot of things: inspiring, cutthroat, and, yes, sometimes even bumbling. At STAT, with an exceptional team of well-sourced, award-winning reporters, we pride ourselves on delivering you stories that capture it all.
Already this week, we have some outstanding examples:
- For years now, our reporters have dominated coverage of the biotech giant Biogen. So they were well-positioned to tell the inside story, based on court records and interviews, of how the company failed to disclose that its nominee to replace a board member was that person's romantic partner and mother of his child. Our team quickly followed up with a story looking at the challenge the issue raises for the company's new CEO.
- We published a deep dive — the result of a months-long investigation — on how data integrity issues upended Laronde, a biotech once seen as "Moderna 2.0." It is a case study in how easy it can be to get carried away with the promise of new therapies, despite signs of trouble.
- Soon after the news that the CEO of Illumina had announced his resignation from the sequencing behemoth, we published a thoughtful analysis of his tenure, including the ways in which the company mishandled the transition from his predecessor.
- Today, we chronicled the haunting odyssey of an MIT scientist who was vindicated after a years-long fraud investigation but says the experience sidelined his work, decimated his team, and barred him from speaking out in his own defense.
To read these stories, please consider joining our premium subscriber service, STAT+. It costs a lot to pursue and report and edit important stories such as the ones I've cited, and STAT is reliant on subscribers so we can produce this ambitious journalism. You can get 15% off an annual subscription by using the promo code STAT15 when you check out. We also offer group subscriptions and licenses, as well as special academic and nonprofit rates. You can get more information here.
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Beyond biotech, we produce a bounty of STAT+ stories day after day on health policy, hospitals and providers, chronic disease, and health tech. We also have opened an office in London with a reporter who gives our readers an early jump on overnight news. A STAT+ subscription gets you other benefits, including discounts on our reports. Our most recent ones were "Decoding Medicare: 10 key decisions and how they're made" and "Clinical trial delays: what they mean and why you should care."
Don't take my word for it. On Tuesday, a reader from Somerville, Mass., named Chris Dwan, who — after complimenting one of our stories — posted this on Twitter: "@statnews is 100% worth the paywall."
I hope you agree.
Thank you for reading STAT. As always, I welcome you to reach out to me with feedback at rick.berke@statnews.com.
Best regards,
Richard L. Berke
Co-founder & Executive Editor
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