MedCityNews.com heads East: Welcome Philadelphia

Ask a person on any street in America about medical innovations and you’ll get answers like Boston, San Francisco and the Twin Cities. It’s stunning that same national cachet is less often attached to the MedCity of Philadelphia.

In recent years, there’s been much more buzz. A Milken study funded by regional groups a couple years ago confirmed what most insiders already know: Greater Philadelphia is among the greatest life science cities in the United States.

That’s why I’m excited that we’ve opened our fourth office in Philadelphia. We’ll report and opine on the innovative healthcare delivery and innovation from the likes of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn Medicine; chronicle the growth of the dynamic startups that dot the region; keep track of the thought leadership from the national players operating out of the city and the surrounding area; all the while trying to give you the inside scuttlebutt you can’t get by writing from afar. Periodically, we’ll even head up north to cover new startups coming from the ever-growing early-stage network in New York City.

We’ve hired a new face to the industry who brings all the right attributes to cover the life sciences and healthcare there. Stephanie Baum is a globally minded and savvy business journalist. For years she covered financial news for a Dow Jones publication in New York, and spent several years in the United Kingdom doing radio and trade publication work. She’s keenly aware of how to write about a community like Philadelphia’s life science sector for a national audience, and is also a native of Greater Philadelphia (locals will appreciate that she attended The Shipley School out in Bryn Mawr).

Stephanie is already reporting and meeting members of the local industry. Her work will filter into the appropriate sections on MedCityNews.com. But Philadelphia also has its own section and accompanying weekly e-newsletter. And I encourage everyone to reach out to Stephanie directly at sbaum@medcitynews.com.

I have a personal affinity for Philadelphia. I spent two years in the city working at The Philadelphia Inquirer, living in an apartment in the city’s Fairmount neighborhood and cursing the kids that started a tire fire that clogged my drive on I-95 back in the mid-1990s.

Philadelphia was a great MedCity then. It is a great MedCity now. We’re excited to tell that story.