WSJ hires Pharmalot blogger

Wall Street Journal business editor Dennis Berman sent out the following staff hire announcement on Friday:

We are thrilled to announce a new addition to our health and science team — Ed Silverman — who will spearhead an exciting new digital-first effort aimed at the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

Ed will be doing it all here at the Journal: Blogging, breaking news, and crafting feature stories and online projects.

Ed is somewhat of a legend to those in the industry, having gained a large following while running the Pharmalot blog, where he was a respected voice amid the cacophony of the pharma rumor mill.

Among the highlights of his work there was a three-part series about allegations that Pfizer sales reps were encouraged to use inappropriate practices to boost sales of an older AIDS drug, which was honored by the Association of Health Care Journalists.

He also broke stories about use of a corporate helicopter by a Pfizer executive to commute from an out-of-state home; FDA plans to boost inspections in China; and a paper co-authored by an FDA staffer that questioned the safety of a widely used diabetes pill —before it was published in JAMA.

Ed spent many years as a business writer at the Star Ledger, where the Pharmalot blog was born. He has also had distinguished tenures at New York Newsday and Investor’s Business Daily.

He has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s in accounting from Binghamton University. He lives in Millburn, N.J., with his wife and children, and two dogs. Please join us in welcoming Ed.

The Pharmalot blog had closed at the end of last year. It had been bought by UBM Canon in 2009 after the Star-Ledger in Newark closed it then. Silverman had maintained its Twitter account since the beginning of the year.