An update on recent Pharmaceutical Research articles from the editor-in-chief
By Tonglei Li, Ph.D., Pharmaceutical Research Editor-in-Chief
First of all, I am pleased to report that Pharmaceutical Research has seen its Impact Factor rise from 3.2 in 2019 to 4.2 in 2020! While Impact Factor should not be regarded as the sole metric used to judge a journal’s quality, it does suggest that we have published impactful articles that are downloaded, read, and cited. Seeing the increase is nothing short of rewarding to the editors and reviewers who have worked hard to screen hundreds of submissions and, more importantly, helped the authors present their best efforts and disseminate their findings. Kudos to everyone.
I would like to highlight a few articles published earlier this year in Pharmaceutical Research. People are scared of needles, so formulation scientists have sought ways to identify and mitigate injection-induced pain. As described in the article Subcutaneous Injection Site Pain of Formulation Matrices (DOI: 10.1007/s11095-021-03047-3), penned by Galen Shi and his colleagues at Eli Lilly and Company, the authors conducted clinical trials of locally injected buffer solutions and recorded pain intensities on healthy subjects. Solution composition was found greatly influential in inducing injection site pain. The article is featured on the cover of the May issue, also shown here. People will still be afraid of needles, but thanks to this paper, injectable formulation of a therapeutic molecule without inducing much pain is likely.
The April issue cover features an article written by Iris Minichmayr, Mats Karlsson, and Siv Jönsson from the University of Uppsala. Entitled Pharmacometrics-Based Considerations for the Design of a Pharmacogenomic Clinical Trial Assessing Irinotecan Safety (DOI: 10.1007/s11095-021-03024-w), this open access article demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating pharmacogenomics (PGx) into pharmacokinetic modeling in designing clinical trials of irinotecan. Smaller cohort sizes can be achieved by modeling PGx-based dosing, as compared with the conventional modeling approach. The cover feature in the June issue was the open access article Molecular, Solid-State and Surface Structures of the Conformational Polymorphic Forms of Ritonavir in Relation to their Physicochemical Properties (DOI: 10.1007/s11095-021-03048-2) with Kevin Roberts as the corresponding author. It provides a thorough analysis of the conformational polymorphism of ritonavir—the poster child of unexpected phase transition in drug products—and solid properties, shedding light on the variation in solubility and bioavailability of its two crystal forms. In the area of drug delivery, the cover feature in the March issue, Targeted Delivery of Combination Therapeutics Using Monoclonal Antibody 2C5-Modified Immunoliposomes for Cancer Therapy (DOI: 10.1007/s11095-021-02986-1), is written by Radhika Narayanaswamy and Vladimir Torchilin. It illustrates the enhanced therapeutic efficacy of a combined salinomycin and paclitaxel that is enabled by the delivery of monoclonal-antibody (mAb)-modified liposomes.
We also have several special issues that are in the making. Especially, an honorary special issue entitled Translational Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics in CNS and Beyond will be dedicated to Professor Emerita Margareta Hammarlund-Udenaes, former Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Head of the Translational Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics, Uppsala University. It is being edited by Professors Elizabeth CM de Lange, David E. Smith, Tetsuya Terasaki, and Irena Loryan. More than 30 articles are expected from leading scientists in the field in this exciting issue to be published in mid-2022.
Read all Pharmaceutical Research articles with your AAPS membership by logging in a clicking through on the AAPS website. And make sure to submit your article to the journal!