📰 Spotlight on Jef Akst, Managing Editor, BioSpace

Background

-Name: Jef Akst

-Home Base: Based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, working entirely from home.

-Role: Managing Editor at BioSpace, overseeing a fully virtual editorial team spread across the US and Canada, with freelancers in the EU and Asia. Compared with her prior role at The Scientist, where she spent most of her career, Jef says her work at BioSpace “took me outside of my comfort zone… Now, I’m involved in the stories [and] also in the running of the whole department.” Even though she’s only been at BioSpace a year, Jef “feels like I’m a big part of a small company.”

-Expertise: With a focus on biopharma, Jef oversees both the news desk and features desk, ensuring coverage spans from immediate news to reported stories, with an eye toward expanding in-depth analyses of trends within the industry. Full bio here and personal website here.

Beat Overview

-Publication: BioSpace focuses primarily on the US biopharma industry but acknowledges the global nature of the industry; core audience is the biopharma industry itself. A few of BioSpace’s newsletters, GenePool (5x week, Mon-Fri), ClinicaSpace (weekly, Monday) and BioPharm Exec (weekly, Wednesday), include editorial content from Jef and her team. In addition, the BioSpace marketing department puts out Career Insider (weekly, Thursday) with career advice columns, hiring trends and other biopharma jobs news.

-Coverage Areas: BioSpace concentrates on drug development, pharmaceuticals, biologics, and significant therapeutic areas (e.g. gene therapy, psychedelics, etc.). Strong split between two main beats: Business (e.g. covers deals, financings, policy/IRA) and Research (R&D, clinical trials, FDA approvals).

-Angles of Interest: Differentiates between aggregate news—quick summaries based on press releases and third-party reporting—and reported stories, which provide a deeper dive into biopharma trends via original research and interviews. BioSpace publishes 4-7 aggregate stories daily, focusing on immediacy and accessibility, while reported stories aim to explore more complex narratives, often relating to business trends, policy impacts or therapeutic innovations.

What to Watch

-Observing Trends: Looks at trends within certain indications or therapeutic areas such as GLP-1 drugs and their application beyond diabetes, signaling an openness to stories at the intersection of innovation and broad health impact.

-Sourcing News: Prefers reputable sources like newswires for aggregate news stories, focusing on significant announcements and press releases from the biopharma industry.

-“Second-Day” Reported Stories: Defines these as coverage that offers a follow-up or analysis of breaking news, highlighting the importance of providing additional context or expert commentary beyond initial reports; publishing timeline is more flexible as opposed to aggregate news, and occasionally considers trend stories with 2-5 week lead time.

–Commentary Opportunities: Selectively publishes opinion pieces that “ideally touch on a timely event or trend in industry [and] position the author as a qualified commenter on the topic at hand.” Remember to disclose any conflicts of interest and to use first-person POV with a conversational tone.

-Weekly Podcast: BioSpace‘s podcast, “The Weekly,” extends their news coverage, offering discussions that may align with reported stories; currently does not include guest interviews but considering this in the future.

-Social Media: Jef notes an increased focus on LinkedIn, adapting to changing audience engagement trends, with exploratory expansions into Instagram and Threads; publication retains basic presence on X and Facebook.

-Future Directions: Expresses a desire to expand feature coverage, including more in-depth, investigative work. Jef encourages PR professionals to consider BioSpace‘s aim for “quality journalism [with] a higher bar and lower volume,” compared with many peer publications that have bigger staffs.

Pitching Tips

-Primary Contacts for Pitches: Jef is BioSpace’s main point of contact for reported news and opinions; she appreciates pitches that go beyond press releases to offer substantive insights and context, particularly when they illuminate broader industry trends or implications. For quick-hit aggregate news, email news editor Greg Slabodkin directly; he begins reviewing news and pitches each day bright and early at 6:30 a.m. ET.

-Personalized Engagement: Values personalized, well-researched pitches that demonstrate an understanding of BioSpace‘s editorial focus. Jef makes an effort to respond to all inbound personalized pitches, regardless if they result in coverage.

-Valued Experts: Regularly seeks insights from market analysts and regulatory experts to provide depth to stories, indicating a preference for pitches that can include or suggest access to such viewpoints.

-Embargoed News: Encourages early submission of embargoed news, allowing more time for comprehensive reporting and analysis and therefore, increased likelihood of landing a reported story, vs. aggregate news coverage. “The earlier, the better… We only have certain bandwidth, and we only do so many reported stories. But the more of a lead time you can give us on an embargo, the more that we can entertain that as an option of a more fulsome story,” Jef advises.

Pet Peeves

-Misunderstanding of BioSpace’s Coverage: Dislikes pitches irrelevant to BioSpace‘s core focus, emphasizing the need to recognize their specific interest in drug development and biopharma, excluding medtech and diagnostics.

-Lack of “Why Now” Hook: Stresses the importance of including a compelling reason for why a story is timely or significant at the moment of pitching, beyond the inherent interest of the news item itself. Jef is open to evergreen pitches, but that “why now” hook is still imperative.

-Competition Coyness: Claims of having no competitors are viewed skeptically; including peers and competitors in pitches is beneficial, as it saves Jef from additional research and indicates a story’s broader significance. “I want to know what the trend in the space is, so I’m actually more interested if there are competitors, especially competitors that are near where [companies being pitched] are in the clinical development process,” she shares.

Events and Conferences

-JPM: Team recently began attending conferences again post-COVID, starting with JPM24 in January and intend to go again in 2025.

–AACR: Plans to attend virtually.

-ASCO: Also plans to attend virtually, or potentially in person.

–ASGCT: Jef and Greg Slabodkin, News Editor, will be at ASGCT in Baltimore in May.

–BIO: Heather McKenzie, Senior Editor, will be at BIO in San Diego in June. She also is on a panel there.

–Upcoming Plans: “We are looking to both research-based and business-based conferences in the biopharma space. And we’re slowly growing our presence at those,” balancing editorial priorities with budget considerations, she says.

Key Quote

“My priority [at BioSpace is] to increase the volume and depth of our features. Do more of the features that we’re doing now and then add on to that: Do more in-depth features, do longer features, do more enterprising features, do investigative work – really growing that side of our editorial department.”

Lightning Round

–Preferred Contact Method? Email.

–One Word for the Perfect Pitch? Contextual.

–Favorite Newswires? Reuters and Seeking Alpha.

–Yes or No to Infographics? Yes, if they can enhance pitches when they offer meaningful insights.

–Interested in Receiving Inbound Images? Yes.

–Social Media Links in Pitches–Useful or Not? No, prefers direct contact info for sources

–Attached, Pasted or Linked Press Releases? Pasted in email, below body of the pitch.

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