Publishers’ commentary: What’s in store is ‘more’

That time of year has come again—always in December or January—when we the publishers hijack our chief editor’s “Editor’s Focus” column on this page. Not that he minds; in fact, we’re pretty sure he enjoys the break once a year from having to come up with a theme or deep thoughts about the pharma/biotech industry.

But, as always, we want to take this “Publishers’ Commentary” opportunity to look back at the year that soon will be past and to look forward to the year to come.

Looking back, we have been pleased as always with our loyal readership, our new readers and the advertisers who help guide them toward technology and services they need to do their research and development from discovery through clinical trials and in the diagnostics realm. We share with you the news you might not have gotten otherwise about pharma and biotech, and give you something extra where we can with the news you perhaps could not help but hear about, especially some of those really big-dollar deals and breakthrough R&D studies and trials.

While our overall approach to the news has been remained constant through most of our 13 years (now going into year 14, and we’re already eager for the 20^th anniversary to come one day), we have added some new twists. In 2016 we dabbled in providing Special Focus sections (Zika virus and cancer research), but we went all-in for 2017 with four Special Focus sections throughout the year on cancer research news (the last of which appears in this issue beginning on page 28) and two on CRISPR gene-editing advances. They have provided a nice bridge between (and a sort of hybrid of) the straight news that fills most of these pages and the fine Special Reports from Randall C Willis that delve deeply into specific therapeutic and research concerns with a feature article approach.

In 2018, we will run a pair of cancer research news Special Focus sections, another two on CRISPR and also add into the mix one on neuroscience/neurodegenerative disease. (And, as for Randy’s Special Reports, we have on deck cardiovascular disease, neuroscience, epigenetics, cancer, drug delivery, stem cells, cell biology and molecular diagnostics—and we can’t wait to see what unique approaches he will bring to each.)

But we also have exciting things happening on the online side of our operations.

During 2017, we picked up the pace on custom content marketing pieces sent via email that bring to you not only special news, white papers and the like from specific companies, but also news and feature articles from our magazine and website that touch on the same research, therapeutic or technology focuses those companies are sharing with you. We are looking forward to more of those in 2018.

And, finally, achieving a dream we have been bandying around for some time now, we plan to bring to you podcasts, initially from Panasonic and Bio-Rad but perhaps also from other companies and/or industry leaders who can speak to research and technology issues.

Once again, thank you for sharing our journey with us and sometimes sharing your thoughts with us, and we look forward to serving your needs through 2018 and beyond.