For Immediate Release: Monday, February 21, 2022
Media Contact: Madeline Broas | [email protected]
Reporters Adam Feuerstein, Matthew Herper, and Damian Garde honored for their investigative reporting on the controversial rollout of Aduhelm, Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug.
STAT’s win marks the second consecutive year its journalism has been recognized with prestigious George Polk Awards.
BOSTON — STAT, the leading media company reporting on health, science, and medicine, is proud to announce that reporters Adam Feuerstein, Matthew Herper, and Damian Garde have been awarded the George Polk Award for Medical Reporting for their groundbreaking coverage of Biogen’s rollout of its controversial Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm. This honor follows a Polk award last year to infectious disease and global health reporter Helen Branswell, who received the award for public service for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is the second year in a row in which STAT has won a Polk Award, a remarkable achievement for a relatively new news organization,” said John Darnton, curator of the awards.
Over the last year, Feuerstein, Herper, and Garde have driven coverage of the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve Aduhelm — the first new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades. Their authoritative reporting into Biogen’s use of back channels and covert lobbying to get FDA approval of the drug sparked a federal investigation.
“We’re honored by this recognition of three of our reporters, who among them have 50 years of experience covering the biotech industry,” said Rick Berke, co-founder and executive editor of STAT. “In covering one of the most contentious drug approvals in decades, they brought a deep understanding of science, business, and regulatory policies. They also brought expertise on this drug, in particular, having covered its development since 2015.”
The George Polk Awards were established in 1949 by Long Island University to commemorate George Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered in 1948 while covering the Greek civil war. The awards, which place a premium on investigative and enterprising reporting that gains attention and achieves results, are conferred annually to honor special achievement in journalism. Information on this year’s winners is available here.
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About STAT:
Founded in 2015, STAT is a national digital media brand that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about the life sciences industries to more than 6 million monthly site visitors and an additional 20 million readers on the Apple News app. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry — and a revolution in human health.