About...
Ed Silverman
Ed Silverman is a prize-winning journalist who has covered the pharmaceutical industry for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, one of the nation's largest daily newspapers, for more than 12 years. During that time, he has closely followed a variety of topics of concern to those who work for, and with, pharmaceutical manufacturers - drug development; mergers and acquisitions; regulatory oversight; safety and pricing controversies, and marketing issues.
Prior to joining The Star-Ledger, Silverman spent six years at New York Newsday and previously worked at Investor's Business Daily, among other newspapers. He has a master's degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor's degree in accounting from Binghamton University. Although tethered to his laptop, Silverman lives in suburban New Jersey with his wife, three children and one sizeable labrador retriever.
Since pharma-focused blog sites such as Pharmalot emerged during the past couple of years, the pharmaceutical industry has been hit with a bit of a shock to the system. Until blogs came along, it was harder for people from various walks of life-patients, doctors, lawyers, academics, nurses, and advertising execs, even pharma industry employees-to participate in conversations about relevant topics and do so in a way that their voices could be heard.
How so? Well, there was certainly criticism of the industry over pricing, safety, and promotion. But this was mostly filtered through conventional media stories and the occasional book or op-ed pieces written by an academic expert. Now, though, these sites allow anyone and everyone to air his or her views, which forces the pharma industry to confront the generally unfavorable way it's perceived without being able to blame the media or politicians for these negative perceptions.
At the same time, as industry employees-who almost always chat online by using anonymous names-participate in the conversation, the opportunity arises for genuine exposure to ideas. Officially, pharma is loath to engage the public in this way, but this unofficial channel-sanctioned or not-exposes some members of the public to industry thinking and additional information to which they probably wouldn't glean otherwise.
Unfortunately, pharma remains highly conservative and seems rarely to allow its employees to engage others on these sites. Even spokespeople refrain from leaving comments that could offer additional info or correct misperceptions or factual errors. Instead, the old communications model based on press releases, comments and advertising is still in force, and pharma is missing a golden opportunity to better understand the public it wants very much to buy its medications.
And that's a shame, because so many different conversations about all sorts of topics-patents, advertising, clinical trials, lawsuits, adverse effects, physician decisions, regulatory reform, job cutbacks, and mergers-take place on drug-focused web sites. These topics are discussed and debated to the point where the participants often seem to come away with new insights, if not a better understanding of viewpoints that differ from their own. Imagine how much richer these discussions would be if industry participated.
Clearly, the gist of these discussions is industry practices, which nowadays are very much under a microscope. This focus isn't entirely new. Pharma behavior has been closely scrutinized for nearly a decade as one controversy after another emerged. The Internet, however, has made it possible for more people to share information and follow those discussion strands. This trend appears to suggest that industry ethics have worsened, but from my point of view, it's not the ethics that have changed; rather, there's simply much more scrutiny.
The elephant in the room
Pharma folks could make greater use of the Internet if it weren't for the elephant in the room-regulatory concerns. The legal teams cite regulatory oversight as a reason to avoid direct interaction with consumers. Adherence to this policy has reached the point where industry is unable to better understand the public without having to rely on web sites that are cleverly and carefully designed to restrict the type of communication that takes place. Even corporate blogs, such as J&J BTW or GlaxoSmithKline's Alli, which is a product blog, appear restrained.
As for what I do on Pharmalot, I try to employ the same journalistic principles I've used in my career writing for newspapers. Whatever the topic, I try to ensure that I present a complete picture, and I always update a story when additional info is provided, whether it comes from a company or any other source. This goes for stories I've generated on my own or those I've linked to in other media. The blog format, however, does allow me to interject my own thoughts and, sometimes, opinions. But this is a way to engage the reader/viewer as if we're having a conversation, which is an important reason for the site to exist. And these conversations are where the action really is. If only pharma could find its voice.