Ed Silverman to Reopen Pharmalot Next Week
Ed Silverman will re-open Pharmalot next week, according to MM&M. The news will be greeted with whoops of joy in Pharma-land and mixed feelings among drug bloggers who, since January, have been enjoying the vacuum his departure created. It also raises the question of why Elsevier saw fit to hire the best-known blogger in the category but not utilize his traffic-generating talents.
UPDATE: He’s already at it: Read “Pharmawhat? Hello, Folks, Nice To See You Again.”
When Silverman took a buyout and left the Star-Ledger late last year, many presumed Elsevier would have him revamp its In Vivo blog. In Vivo is well-respected and thorough, and its content is often exclusive. But it’s also the blog that other bloggers are glad they don’t have to write (unless your heart races at the news that Adimab raised $8 million in Series D funding last week, in which case ignore me). The prospect of adding Silverman’s aggregation smarts to In Vivo’s granularity could have been a category killer.
The market was fully primed for such a prospect when Scott Hensley left the WSJ, and its Health Blog decided to continue with only sporadic coverage of pharma company news in favor of blow-by-blow healthcare reform news. Hensley has pursued a similar strategy at his new gig, the NPR Health Blog. Those who wanted a cheatsheet of the day’s news were left with Internet Drug News and FiercePharma.
But Elsevier decided to leave the Silverman sword sheathed, so Ed maintained the Pharmalot brand as a less-than-satisfying Twitter stream. That stream has not been updated since Oct. 7. Perhaps he’s prepping a big Monday launch of the new site? Fingers crossed.
And finally: Pharmalittle, the drug blog started by Pharmalot fans when the mothership went dark, is still going strong.
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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