Today marks the day that I return to MedCity News to lead the website and the events business into the next phase of growth.
MedCity has made a name for itself by covering the healthcare industry with passion, something that I have to thank my own parents for as it relates to journalism.
“I want it.” “No, I want it.”
These were the fighting words that my parents lobbed at each other when the morning newspaper was delivered in the apartment in Kolkata, India, where I grew up. All their close friends were journalists, one being an award winner who had broken the news of Dalai Lama’s escape from Tibet to the world.
I was always enamored of the tales they wove and soon enough realized that’s the only way to be. I began aiming to be a reporter at the largest English daily in my city of teeming millions.
Fate albeit played a different role and nearly 17 years ago, I landed on the shores of the U.S. This is now home. I consider myself lucky to be a part of the fourth estate, and even more so to be covering one of the most exciting industries of all: healthcare.
And now given the opportunity to lead MedCity is both humbling and deeply gratifying. This opportunity also comes at a very pivotal time personally. I need modern medicine to work for my 42-year-old brother who is battling renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer).
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
It seems only yesterday — although it was almost five years ago — that as a reporter for MedCity News, I was in the offices of Medtronic’s CEO, Omar Ishrak, who had assumed the top role to right a faltering ship. It was one of MedCity’s first big gets, and I was nervous as hell mainly because I was near full-term with my daughter. It wasn’t a help that my husband would joke that if something happened there would be headlines like “Medtronic CEO Rushes Pregnant Reporter to Hospital.”
Nothing untoward happened, but the interview was a testament to the strength of the then nascent media organization that was shaking things up in the world of healthcare and business-to-business journalism. The largest medtech company in the world, then and now, had taken notice.
And five years hence, MedCity News has gone from strength to strength. It garners a million page views per month on the backs of talented journalists who know their subject matter well and have a no-holds-barred approach. Neil Versel scooped the competition in reporting that GE Healthcare was exiting the electronic medical records business at the annual HIMSS conference. Stephanie Baum used her sources to report how athenahealth’s CEO, Jonathan Bush, rushed to give CPR to a person who had apparently suffered a heart attack on the street during the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco earlier this year.
Both these stories are quintessentially MedCity stories that reflect business and strategy as well as the players and personalities driving them. Countless other former reporters and a community of MedCitizens who are too numerous to name have contributed to what the site is today.
Being back at MedCity, I hope to play my part in taking it to the future and make it a compelling source for healthcare b-to-b content whether it be live through events or through our website. I am betting my ride will be as exhilarating as that of Marty McFly.
