The publisher of Dickinsons FDA Webview is Ferdic, Incorporated, a 1982-established company founded and continuously led by James G. Dickinson, who first began reporting and analyzing FDA news in 1975 at FDC Reports, Inc., publisher of the Pink Sheet and other trade newsletters. Two years later, while still at FDC Reports, Dickinson came under the notice of other publishers and was soon supplying his analytical reports about FDA and related Washington activities to Drug Topics, Scrip World Pharmaceutical News (UK), Pharmaceutical Technology, Pharmaceutical Executive, the Pharmaceutical Journal (UK), Clinica (UK), Animal Pharm (UK), the Australian Journal of Pharmacy, New Zealand Pharmacy, Drug News & Perspectives (Spain), Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry, and Medical Marketing & Media.
The publisher of Dickinson's FDA Webview is Ferdic, Incorporated, a 1982-established company founded and continuously led by Australian-born James G. Dickinson, who first began reporting and analyzing FDA news in 1975 at FDC Reports, Inc., publisher of the Pink Sheet and other trade newsletters. Two years later, while still at FDC Reports, Dickinson came under the notice of other publishers and was soon supplying his analytical reports about FDA and related Washington activities to Drug Topics, Scrip World Pharmaceutical News (UK), Pharmaceutical Technology, Pharmaceutical Executive, the Pharmaceutical Journal (UK), Clinica (UK), Animal Pharm (UK), the Australian Journal of Pharmacy, New Zealand Pharmacy, Drug News & Perspectives (Spain), Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry, and Medical Marketing & Media. In 1978, Dickinson conceived the idea upon which FDA Webview would later be based, establishing the first daily FDA news service for the pharmaceutical industry in Washington Drugwire. Ahead of its time, this was a daily single-sheet Western Union Mailgram providing between five and eight specialized news capsules each morning, based on Dickinsons exclusive FDA sources. The service was too expensive, however, and it ceased publication the following year. In 1985, Dickinson and his wife, the former Sheila Ferguson, began publishing the twice-monthly newsletter Dickinsons FDA, and later several other industry and pharmacy practice-oriented newsletters which underwent various transformations, consolidating eventually into the all-digital Dickinsons FDA Webview in 2007. Today the enterprise is managed by David McFarland, the son of Sheila Dickinson, who died in 2021.