Health news site Stat plans to add paywall

The health news site Stat plans to go behind a paywall by the end of the year, reports Joseph Lichterman of Nieman Lab.

Lichterman writes, “A portion of the site will remain free, but Macaulay’s team is in the process of determining which coverage areas readers would be willing to pay for. The site is hiring a subscription marketing manager.

“Stat has surveyed its email newsletter subscribers and last week began running a survey on its site. So far, Macaulay said the audience is ‘skewing heavily’ toward readers who are coming to the site out of professional interest.

“According to the survey’s results so far, readers are particular interested in biotech, pharma, and hospital coverage. As a result, editor Rick Berke said that Stat is hiring additional reporters and expanding its coverage of those areas.

“When the site launched, it branded its biotech coverage around Cambridge’s Kendall Square, the research hotbed that’s home to MIT, and much of its hospital coverage was focused on the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, home to the Harvard Medical School and a number of hospitals.

“The biotech coverage was rebranded as The Readout last month and relaunched as an email newsletter. A new moniker and newsletter for the hospital coverage are in the works. Stat is hiring another national hospital reporter and recently hired a Cleveland-based biotech reporter.”

Read more here.