2020 has been a challenging year for all of us. At Labiotech, we’re among the lucky businesses that weren’t affected too much by the pandemic. Our activity is online, and our team is used to working remotely, so fortunately, we were able to operate as normal during the lockdown.

Still, a lot has happened in recent months, and we thought it would be a good time to share our most recent developments with you.

Focusing on content

The first change—and most visible—concerns our event series, Refresh. Shortly after the pandemic started, we decided to cancel our Paris Refresh event in March. The following edition was organized online in June and was a great success (thanks again to the many participants who joined us!). Yet, these changes also led us to question our focus on events. After some internal debates, we decided to cancel future Refresh events and focus (or re-focus) on the core of our activity: delivering quality content to our readers.

This is a hard decision for us, and we are quite sad to lose the special connection we had with our attendees during those events. As readers, you can still interact with us through our social media channels or directly reach out to us by email—we’re always happy to have a discussion with you!

Our team is small, and in such a busy world, we have to choose how we spend our energy. Refresh always has been a great experience for us, but organizing regular events all around Europe is not easy. Virtual events are easier to organize, but they still take our attention away from content. 

Our priority has always been to serve the biotech industry by producing high-quality content. The more content we produce, the more knowledge can flow into the community. Ultimately, innovation benefits from the information we create. Going forward, we will intensify our efforts on this mission and vision.

To achieve this, we have to put some of our projects on hold and will come back to them when the timing is right. Refresh was the first in line, and other changes are coming in the future.

Labiotech.eu’s new editorial vision

We’ve been covering the biotech industry in Europe for the last five years, and we’ve learned a lot along the way. Half of our journalists’ time is dedicated to covering the news. So far, we did it mostly through short news ranging from 300 to 500 words and offering succinct descriptions of events. However, short news is not the most impactful format we can create. 

Covering several short news pieces per day forces us to rush against the clock so we can be the first to publish, but this process doesn’t bring high value to our readers. Our strength as a media has always been the way we filter through the news to dig deep into the latest industry trends. Our news section has always used this formula, but in a limited way.

Going forward, our editorial team will expand our news coverage with longer analyses and insight. Instead of producing several short news stories per day, our journalists will select a few key stories each week and cover them in depth to highlight the larger impact these events have on the industry. 

A brand new news coverage with in-depth analyses and insight

Short news is not totally disappearing, though. Labiotech.eu has always been a great place to filter through the noise of the news flow. For those of you who are looking for a quick look at the most important news of the week, we’re adding a new section to our newsletter. Every Friday, we will share a selection of the most important news of the week. This curated list will be available only to our newsletter readers. We’ve also completely redesigned our newsletter to make your reading experience more pleasant. If you aren’t already, don’t forget to subscribe so you can have a look at this new version. 

A new curated section for the most important news stories of each week

Our recent survey also revealed that a lot of our readers are asking for more industry reports. Our editorial team is already working on a new collection of reports to be published next year. Our goal with this format is to provide you with long-lasting resources you can use and re-use on a regular basis. Plus, all reports will be available for free to our Insider members! 

Working on new tools

Right when we launched our website, we decided to provide an easy-to-use biotech map. Many of you have used it to find biotech companies all over Europe. 

However, we realized with frustration that we couldn’t keep it up to date. Maintaining a database of this size is a time-consuming task, especially in a vibrant ecosystem like biotech. For this reason, we are completely rethinking the biotech map.

Our team is currently working on new tools to help our readers navigate the biotech ecosystem. This is still in the early stages, but we will share more information with you in the coming months.

A better user experience

Your experience on our website is very important to us. Over the past years, we’ve regularly updated our website, but we never departed completely from our initial design. As our business is evolving, we’re entering a complete re-design of our website. Our new design will focus on delivering the best reader experience. 

To focus on a common experience across devices, we also decided to remove our mobile app from the app stores. App development is not an easy task for a small company. It requires substantial resources for both development and maintenance. For our app users, we invite you to use the mobile version of our website in your browser. Don’t forget to bookmark our homepage so you can access it as quickly as any app!

We’ve already entered the development phase and hope to surprise you with our new look in early 2021. 

Support from our readers

Last year, we launched our membership program, Labiotech Insider. Being supported by our readers is the best reward we can imagine, and we plan to double (or triple 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻) our efforts toward this goal. 

We are close to hitting the 100-member mark! Our Insider community is composed of executives, consultants, and analysts from the biopharma fields. Several companies, such as Charles River or Johnson & Johnson Innovation, also joined to offer their employees unlimited access to our content. We hope and believe that the Insider family will continue to grow in the coming years.

The media industry is experiencing its largest evolution since the internet disrupted the old print model, and we know it’s becoming harder and harder for readers to stay attentive to the continuous flow of articles and news online. That’s why being supported directly by our readers is so important for us: we know that every new member is a reward for the hard work of our editorial team. And with gained focus, we plan to deliver more regular content, such as industry reports, startup profiles, and actionable advice to our members. 

Those are big changes, but in essence, Labiotech.eu stays the same. Thanks for being one of our readers, and we hope you will enjoy the new chapter in our history. If you value what we do and would like to support our effort and editorial independence, please consider joining our Insider community today, and as usual, feel free to share your feedback with us.