Advances in Pharmacological Sciences

About Advances in Pharmacological Sciences

Advances in Pharmacological Sciences — Journal Profile

Advances in Pharmacological Sciences was a peer-reviewed, open access journal of pharmacology published by Hindawi from 2008 to 2019. It published original research articles, review articles and clinical studies across experimental and clinical pharmacology, pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry and drug delivery. The journal carried the print ISSN 1687-6334 and the online ISSN 1687-6342 (ISSN-L 1687-6334). Publication under this title ceased with the 2019 volume, and from 2020 the journal continued under the expanded title Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences (online ISSN 2633-4690), published first by Hindawi and now within the Wiley portfolio, which acquired Hindawi. This profile documents the original title that the ISSN pair 1687-6334 / 1687-6342 identifies, and explains the succession so that citations to either title can be interpreted correctly.

Overview

Advances in Pharmacological Sciences belonged to Hindawi's large family of open access journals launched in the 2000s, when the publisher converted and expanded its programme into a broad suite of discipline titles run on a continuous-publication, article-based model. Articles were published individually online as they were accepted, gathered into annual volumes (cited as, for example, "Volume 2018, Article ID 4673061"), and made freely available worldwide under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. The journal's scope statement, carried into its successor title, described a journal publishing original research, reviews and clinical studies in all areas of experimental and clinical pharmacology, pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry and drug delivery. During its run the journal was archived in PubMed Central and indexed through the Directory of Open Access Journals, and it formed part of the Hindawi programme whose titles were later transferred to Wiley's publishing platform.

History: 2008–2019, and the 2020 Succession

The ISSN Portal record for the online edition gives the journal's dates of publication as 2008–2019 and its status as ceased: it began with Volume 2008 and its last volume under this title was 2019. The earliest publisher of record was the Hindawi Publishing Corporation in New York; the latest publisher of record under this title was Hindawi in London, reflecting the company's reorganisation as Hindawi Limited in the United Kingdom. A bibliometric record of the title likewise gives its history as 2009–2019 in indexing coverage (the first volume, 2008, preceding some services' coverage start).

From 2020 the journal continued as Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The succession is documented in the international ISSN register: the successor's record (online ISSN 2633-4690) begins with Volume 2020, names Hindawi as earliest publisher and Wiley as latest publisher, and the SafetyLit journal record states the relationship explicitly in library form: "Title preceded by: Advances in pharmacological sciences [ISSN 1687-6342]". The enlarged title reflects an enlarged remit, formally adding pharmaceutical sciences to the masthead of a journal whose aims and scope had always covered pharmaceutics and drug delivery as well as pharmacology. Wiley's acquisition of Hindawi, completed in 2021, subsequently brought the successor title onto the Wiley Online Library platform, and the Directory of Open Access Journals now records the publisher of the journal's listing as Wiley, United Kingdom.

For citation practice the consequence is straightforward: articles from volumes 2008–2019 belong to Advances in Pharmacological Sciences (ISSN 1687-6334 / 1687-6342), and articles from volume 2020 onwards belong to Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences (ISSN 2633-4690). The two titles are one continuing journal, not two competing ones, and the JournalsWorld record under the original title — publisher Wiley, reflecting the current rights-holder — refers to the 2008–2019 run.

Aims and Scope

The journal's published aims and scope defined four broad territories:

• Pharmacology — biochemical pharmacology; mechanisms of drug action; pharmacodynamics; pharmacogenetics; pharmacokinetics; and toxicology.
• Clinical and experimental drug research — the design and preparation of new drugs and their safety and efficacy in humans, including descriptions of drug dosage forms, and clinical studies.
• Medicinal chemistry — all areas of the discipline, including drug discovery, design and synthesis.
• Drug delivery — the basic biology of drug and gene delivery, and the application and development of those principles in therapeutic delivery and targeting, including bioavailability, controlled release, microcapsules, novel drug delivery systems, personalised drug delivery and techniques for passing biological barriers.

The Library of Congress classification recorded for the title in the ISSN register is Medicine: Therapeutics. Pharmacology (Dewey 615 / 615.1), and its subject heading is "Pharmacology. Therapeutics. Toxicology". In practice the journal published a wide spread of laboratory and translational work: natural-product and plant-extract pharmacology, analgesic and anti-inflammatory studies, antimicrobial and anticancer drug research, neuropharmacology, cardiovascular pharmacology, pharmacokinetic evaluations and formulation studies — the typical contents of a generalist open access pharmacology title of its period.

Publisher: Hindawi, and the Move to Wiley

The journal was created by the Hindawi Publishing Corporation, founded in Cairo and later operating from New York and then London as Hindawi Limited, one of the earliest large-scale open access publishers. Hindawi's model for titles such as this one combined continuous online publication, article processing charges with a waiver policy, Creative Commons licensing with authors retaining copyright, and deposit in major digital archives. In 2021 John Wiley & Sons acquired Hindawi, and the Hindawi journal portfolio — including this journal's successor title — migrated to Wiley's platform and imprint management; the DOAJ record for the journal currently names Wiley (United Kingdom) as publisher, and the successor's ISSN record names Wiley of Hoboken, New Jersey as latest publisher. The JournalsWorld directory entry for Advances in Pharmacological Sciences accordingly lists the publisher as Wiley.

Peer Review and Editorial Standards

The journal operated anonymous peer review, as recorded in its Directory of Open Access Journals listing, and, in line with Hindawi's published practice, manuscripts were screened for plagiarism — the DOAJ listing confirms that the journal checked submissions for plagiarism. DOAJ recorded an average of about 14 weeks from submission to publication for the title. Hindawi journals of this family were run by an editor-in-chief with an international editorial board of subject editors handling individual manuscripts; the detailed board roster for the ceased title is no longer maintained on a live journal page, and individual names are therefore not reproduced here. Authors published under a CC BY licence and retained unrestricted copyright and publishing rights, per the DOAJ record.

Fees (Article Processing Charges)

As an open access Hindawi title, the journal was funded by article processing charges. The Directory of Open Access Journals records the journal's publication fees as up to USD 1,100, GBP 740 or EUR 960, with a waiver policy for authors unable to pay — the standard Hindawi arrangement of the period. Aggregator records of the title from its final years give a somewhat lower figure (USD 925 is quoted in one journal-metrics listing), which is consistent with charges having been revised over the journal's life; the DOAJ figures are the ones recorded in the journal's own directory listing and are quoted here as the journal's documented maximum. Because the title ceased in 2019, no new submissions are accepted under it; authors considering the successor title should check the current charge on the Wiley journal page rather than relying on these historical figures.

Indexing, Archiving and Identifiers

The journal's DOAJ listing records that its articles were digitally archived in CLOCKSS, PubMed Central (PMC) and Portico — the three preservation routes that guarantee the 2008–2019 backfile remains accessible although the title has ceased — and that its permanent article identifier is the DOI, assigned in Hindawi's article-ID citation format. The title was covered by Scopus during its run (indexing histories record coverage beginning in 2009), and its presence in PubMed Central made its contents discoverable through PubMed, the principal biomedical literature database. Its identity in the serials register is fixed by the ISSN Portal: print ISSN 1687-6334, online ISSN 1687-6342, ISSN-L 1687-6334, abbreviated key title Adv. pharmacol. sci., language English, subject Pharmacology / Therapeutics / Toxicology.

How to Cite and Where to Find the Content

Articles in this journal are cited by author, year, article title, journal title, volume (the year), and article ID with DOI — the form used by PubMed Central, where the journal's archive is hosted (the PMC journal record is the stable route to the full backfile today). Readers searching for a specific 2008–2019 article should search PubMed or PubMed Central by article title or DOI rather than the ceased journal's former Hindawi web address, and should remember that any "current" metrics, submission links or calls for papers attached to the name will in fact belong to the successor title, Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, on Wiley Online Library.

Summary

Advances in Pharmacological Sciences (ISSN 1687-6334 print; 1687-6342 online) was Hindawi's open access pharmacology journal, published from 2008 to 2019 under anonymous peer review with CC BY licensing, article processing charges up to USD 1,100 with waivers, and archiving in PubMed Central, CLOCKSS and Portico. It ceased under this title after the 2019 volume and continues from 2020 as Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences (ISSN 2633-4690), now published by Wiley. This profile profiles the record honestly as a ceased-and-succeeded title so that its substantial 2008–2019 backfile remains correctly identified in the JournalsWorld directory.

Identity Check: Not to Be Confused With…

The title Advances in Pharmacological Sciences is close to several other serial names, and correct identification matters for citation. It is not Advances in Pharmacology, the long-running Elsevier book series of review volumes (in publication since the 1960s) — a different format, publisher and ISSN. It is not Advances in Pharmaceutical Sciences or any of the similarly titled conference proceedings and book series that share the "Advances in…" formula. And it is not, strictly, the same bibliographic record as its own successor: libraries treat Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences (2020– ) as the continuation of this title under a new title and new ISSN, linked by a preceding/succeeding relationship in the ISSN register and in shared library catalogues. The unique identifiers of the journal described here are the ISSN pair 1687-6334 / 1687-6342 and the Hindawi imprint for volumes dated 2008–2019; any volume dated 2020 or later with ISSN 2633-4690 belongs to the successor record.

The Successor Title Today

Because most readers who search for this journal today are really looking for the living title, the successor deserves a summary in its own right. Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences began with Volume 2020 under Hindawi, publishes on a continuous basis (one volume per year, articles released as accepted), and is now published by Wiley on the Wiley Online Library platform. Its KEEPERS registry entry shows preservation of the full run — volumes 2013–2019 of the predecessor together with 2020–2026 of the successor — by Portico and the Library of Congress among others, so the combined backfile is under active digital preservation. Journal-metrics services that track the successor report an h-index in the mid-50s and a Journal Impact Factor in the 3s in recent Journal Citation Reports years (3.430 for 2025 in one such service's computation from JCR and SCImago data); such figures belong to the successor title and its combined citation history, change every year, and should be checked against the current Journal Citation Reports or SCImago page before being quoted. The successor retains the family's open access, CC BY model and its Hindawi-era editorial workflow, now administered within Wiley's systems.

Article Types and What the Journal Published

Across both titles, the journal's article portfolio has comprised original research articles (the majority: experimental pharmacology, formulation and evaluation studies), review articles (narrative and systematic surveys of drug classes, targets and delivery technologies), and clinical studies. In the Hindawi period the journal also ran guest-edited special issues on focused themes, a signature Hindawi mechanism for gathering papers around an emerging topic under the guidance of specialist editors. The subject mix visible in the archived backfile spans ethnopharmacology and natural products — a notably large stream, reflecting global interest in plant-derived therapeutics — alongside cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, antimicrobial, anticancer and metabolic pharmacology, toxicological assessments, and pharmaceutics work on solubility enhancement, controlled release and novel carriers. This breadth is deliberate: the title was positioned as a generalist home for sound pharmacological science rather than a niche organ of one sub-discipline, in contrast to society journals serving a single therapeutic area.

Submission Guidance (Historical Title and Current Successor)

No new manuscripts can be submitted to Advances in Pharmacological Sciences, which ceased in 2019; the submission route for the continuing journal is the Advances in Pharmacological and Pharmaceutical Sciences page on Wiley Online Library, where current author guidelines, the present article processing charge, the editorial board and the manuscript submission system are maintained. Authors preparing work for the successor should follow Wiley's current instructions for the title — including its requirements on ethics approvals for animal and human studies, data reporting standards for pharmacological experiments, and conflict-of-interest disclosure — rather than any Hindawi-era guidance that may still circulate in secondary sources. Readers verifying an editor, a fee or a deadline for the living title should always go to the Wiley page, since arrangements changed when the portfolio transferred.

A Note on Verification

The facts in this profile are drawn from the international ISSN register (which fixes the title's 2008–2019 run, its ceased status, its publishers of record and its successor relationship), from the Directory of Open Access Journals listing for the title (publisher, charges, licensing, archiving, review model and timelines), from the ISSN record and KEEPERS preservation registry for the successor title, and from the JournalsWorld directory entry that this profile enriches. Where secondary metrics services disagreed with the primary registers — for example, on the exact APC in a given year — the profile follows the primary source and notes the discrepancy. The journal's historical significance is best stated plainly: for twelve annual volumes it was a fully open access, PubMed Central-archived venue for pharmacological research worldwide, and its contents remain part of the permanent scholarly record through PMC, Portico and CLOCKSS even though the title itself has been superseded.

Why the Distinction Between the Two Titles Matters

Directory and bibliometric records frequently blur ceased titles and their successors, which distorts citation counts, coverage dates and fee information. Keeping the 2008–2019 record separate — with its own ISSN pair, its own Hindawi publishing history and its own archived backfile — while linking it explicitly to the Wiley successor preserves the integrity of both records. A citation dated 2015 to this journal is verifiable in PubMed Central today; a submission enquiry dated today belongs to the successor. This profile maintains that separation deliberately, following the structure of the international ISSN register itself, and researchers compiling publication lists, tenure dossiers or systematic-review search histories for pharmacology should apply the same rule: cite the title and ISSN that were current in the year the article appeared.

Finally, a practical note for librarians maintaining serials records: the ceased title should be closed with the 2019 volume, its holdings linked forwards to the successor's record (ISSN 2633-4690), and its electronic access pointed at the PubMed Central archive rather than at any live submission or journal-home URL. Holdings recorded this way will continue to resolve correctly for readers following citations from the 2008–2019 pharmacology literature, which is precisely the population this JournalsWorld profile is written to serve.

That archival stability, more than any single metric, is the measure of the journal's lasting contribution to the pharmacological literature of its decade.