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Australasian Biotechnology, Vol. 12 No. 1, 2002, pp. 20 MEDIA RELATIONS WHY WE NEED TO IMPROVE THE BIOTECH INDUSTRY’S RELATIONS WITH THE MEDIA Tania Ewing, Health Inbox Pty Ltd., Melbourne Code Number: au02005 At the first Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) meeting, in Toronto in 1994, the organisers had to hire a public relations firm to get members of the media to attend. In comparison, at last year’s BIO 2001 meeting held in San Diego over 500 members of the press were registered and the organisers are expecting even greater media attention this year. In less than a decade the media has gone from being cynical, nervous or uninterested in biotechnology to embracing it. That is true, at least in the US, where there is a fledgling symbiotic relationship between the biotech industry and the business and science media. Whether on Wall Street, in Massachusetts or San Diego, the media are hungry for information, not only about the latest scientific discovery that may translate into a new therapy. There is also a hunger for stories about companies planning IPOs, start-ups that may be worth profiling or even individuals who are new stars in the biotech firmament. And savvy biotech companies have learnt that the media is a useful tool in the promotion of their business to investors, as well as a way to change public perception about biotech, which remains, at best, nervous. Yet at the Club Bio conference held at the Gold Coast last November a well-attended session on the media was littered with attendees complaining that there is simply no point talking to the media about biotechnology -because Australian journalists (a) have no idea about biotechnology; (b) don’t understand the science and (c) always get the facts wrong. It is not the media that suffers from such an attitude. Everyone from the chief scientific officer running a small start-up to the CEO of a major biotech company should recognise that journalists and their media outlets can be an enormously successful way to raise a company’s profile. Whether you are a scientist trying to get early stage VC interest in your discovery or you are a company planning an IPO, a story about what you do and who you are in a daily newspaper can reach an enormous audience. Get that story in The Financial Review or BRW or even in the business section of a daily newspaper such as The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age and that story then becomes a highly targeted marketing tool. But using the media well takes some homework. It requires seeking out journalists whose work you trust and admire. Ring them up, form a relationship with them, just as you would potential investors or clients. Then it is just as important to always be available. Newspapers, and to a greater extent, television operate on very tight deadlines. If there is a biotech story in the news, and you feel you could offer an insight, then make yourself available. Don’t miss the opportunity to raise the profile of your business. One of last year’s biggest science stories was the announcement that US President George W. Bush was overturning a moratorium on human stem-cell research and allowing restricted federal funding of the science. This was a perfect time for those Australian biotech companies, and research groups involved in stem-cell research to contact the media. When that story broke, there would have been a posse ofjournalists hunting for a stem-cell story with an Australian angle. Yet the next day there were no significant stories about Australian companies on the cutting edge of commercialising this new technology, no profiles in the business press on savvy CEOs who could talk about what stem cells could do for the pharmaceutical industry. Such opportunities come along rarely and researchers and biotech companies only do themselves damage by sitting back and sneering at the way the media may mishandle a complex science story. The general public, and more specifically, the investment community want to know more about what is going on in Australian biotech. They don’t need to read stories about interstate rivalry. What they want is more information about where Australian biotech is going, what it does well and, yes, cautionary articles about the potential dangers of science moving too far, too fast. As in most things in the biotech industry, we must learn from the Americans: teach the media about science and biotech and they will reward you by in turn teaching the rest of the world about it as well. And you might just score a deal or a client in the process. Tania Ewing is a former Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT and was The Age newspaper’s Science Writer. She now runs Health Inbox Pty Ltd, a company that advises the biotech industry on media strategies in Australia and internationally. Contact details: tewing1@ozemail.com.au; 0408 378 422. Copyright 2002 - AusBiotech |
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