There's a lot at stake in media coverage of the biotech industry. For the companies themselves, obviously, but for others too. Like us at The Scientist: we have to make judgments on what to cover and how, based on our aim of ensuring that you, our readers, get the maximum amount of information.
Two stories in this issue illustrate the tensions between company objectives and ours. One is the profile of Neil Fowler here. This is an incisive sketch of an important industry player, but to get beneath the skin of the Centocor CEO we wanted to know what he had to say about the possibility of layoffs at his company, given that two sister companies under the J&J umbrella - Alza and Scios - had just had massive cuts. He refused to talk about it. I guess the moose just didn't want to play that day ....
The other ...
