Cohrs deepens STAT’s growing D.C. reporting team in advance of new Biden administration
Boston, MA – STAT, the nation’s leading health, science and medicine publication, today announced the expansion of its Washington, D.C. team with the hiring of Rachel Cohrs, formerly of Modern Healthcare. Cohrs joins STAT’s growing D.C. team, correspondents Nicholas Florko and Lev Facher and Senior News Editor Erin Mershon, to focus on a variety of topics including hospital advocacy and other health policymaking efforts. The hiring comes amid a worsening coronavirus pandemic and as the new Democratic Congress embarks on an ambitious agenda for drug pricing reform and changes to Obamacare.
At Modern Healthcare, Cohrs was the D.C. correspondent and broke a number of important stories, including exclusives on federal relief funds for hospitals and the lobbying activities of private equity-backed doctor staffing firms. She also covered major Washington debates over surprise billing, drug pricing and federal Covid-19 response. Cohrs will also add to STAT’s ongoing and extensive reporting on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry in Washington.
“With the new administration about to start and the pandemic continuing to rage in our extremely partisan environment, there couldn’t be a better time for Rachel to bring her deeply impressive health policy experience to our team,” said Rick Berke, STAT’s co-founder and executive editor. “The coming months are sure to hold more unprecedented twists as the country gains a new administration and faces enormous health challenges. We’re thrilled to have Rachel on board through it all.”
STAT’s D.C. team has long excelled in breaking key stories, including the CDC’s first official guidance on face masks, Rick Bright’s ouster, and the secretive leadership structure of Operation Warp Speed, alongside ambitious features about key regulatory decisionmakers and the Biden transition team’s earliest plans to overhaul our country’s pandemic response strategy. STAT’s weekly newsletter focused on policy, D.C. Diagnosis, has seen its audience more than double as the federal government’s role in public health policymaking has taken center stage.
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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 at least 6 million visitors to the site each month. In addition, we had more than 20 million unique readers on the Apple News app in 2020. 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.
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