Pharmakeftiki

About Pharmakeftiki

Pharmakeftiki — Greece's quarterly journal of the pharmaceutical sciences

Pharmakeftiki (Greek: Φαρμακευτική, "Pharmaceutical") is a peer-reviewed, open access scholarly journal from Greece that has served the pharmaceutical sciences since 1988. It began inside the Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry (HSMC), later followed an independent pathway as a quarterly edition on pharmaceutical sciences topics, and today it remains supported by the HSMC and, more recently, also by the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society (HPS). The journal publishes review articles and original research across the full breadth of pharmacy — from medicinal chemistry and drug delivery to clinical pharmacy and toxicology — in English or in Greek, and it deliberately gives young scientists, graduate students and doctoral candidates a forum in which to present their results. Its print ISSN is 1105-4999 and its electronic ISSN is 2241-3081. This profile is anchored to the Journals World record for this exact title and ISSN pair, and every factual claim below is drawn from the journal's own platform, its published issue mastheads, or named bibliographic services, with aggregator figures attributed as such.

At a glance

History and identity

The journal's own history, published on its current platform, is concise and worth following closely because it explains the title's character. Publication of Pharmakeftiki started in 1988 within the Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry. A society journal in origin, it later followed an independent pathway as a quarterly edition on pharmaceutical sciences topics, always supported by the HSMC and recently also by the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society. Since 2012 it has been published both in hard copy and online as an open access journal. Volume numbering confirms the long run: the issues of 2025 form volume 37, and the platform's current-issue display in 2026 shows volume 38, issue 3 in preparation — a run of well over three decades of continuous quarterly publication. Readers should note one small documentary wrinkle: summaries of the journal's older self-description, reproduced by secondary sources, date the start to 1987, while the journal's present platform says 1988. This profile follows the journal's own current statement (1988) and flags the older variant rather than silently harmonising the two.

The societies behind the title matter for understanding its readership. The Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry is the professional home of Greek medicinal chemists; the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society represents the wider pharmaceutical profession in Greece. A journal carried by those two bodies naturally speaks both to laboratory researchers and to practising pharmacists, and its contents reflect that dual audience: a single recent volume moves between computational drug design, community-pharmacy practice research and the history of Greek pharmacy. The print operation has been handled through Zita Medical Management — the name and Athens-area address printed in the issue mastheads — and SCImago's listing likewise names a Zita entity as publisher of record, while scientific ownership and support rest with the two societies. The stored Journals World record previously rendered the publisher field as a bare number, which is a data error: the publisher is not a numeral, and the societies-plus-Zita arrangement described here is the documented position.

Scope and subject coverage

Pharmakeftiki hosts review and original research articles addressing all pharmaceutical topics and relevant scientific areas. The journal's own list names medicinal chemistry; pharmaceutical analysis and technology; nanotechnology and nanomedicine; computational drug design and artificial intelligence; drug delivery systems; clinical pharmacy; toxicology; and the environmental fate of pharmaceuticals. It also provides information on technological achievements and on national and international scientific events, which gives the title a professional-news function alongside its research function — a combination typical of society journals and useful to Greek readers who follow it as a professional record as well as a research outlet.

Two further features of the scope deserve emphasis. First, the journal explicitly welcomes work from young scientists, graduate students and doctoral candidates, presenting itself as a forum where early-career researchers can promote their results; for a national society journal this training-ground role is a real part of its scholarly function. Second, special issues host papers presented at scientific conferences or dedicated to a hot topic, so part of the journal's flow arrives through the Greek and regional conference circuit. Recent regular content shows the breadth in practice: a 2025 research article (volume 37, issue III, pages 186–197) examined how personality traits influence medication adherence among 178 adults with chronic diseases recruited in community pharmacies; a 2025 article in issue II (pages 142–161) quantified the impact of the COVID-19 health crisis on pharmacies and pharmacists in the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace; and an article on the history of Greek pharmacy after the establishment of the Greek state shows the title's willingness to publish the profession's own historiography. Articles carry DOIs under the 10.60988 prefix in the current platform era (for example 10.60988/p.v37i3.67), which makes individual papers straightforward to cite and trace.

Editorial leadership

The masthead printed in the journal's 2026 issues names A. Tsantili, Emeritus Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, as Editor, with G. A. Karikas, Emeritus Professor at the University of West Attica, as Co-Editor. The editorial board listed in the same masthead is drawn from the Greek pharmaceutical professoriate — including C. Demetzos (Athens), V. J. Demopoulos (Thessaloniki), Ch. Kontogiorgis (Democritus University of Thrace), P. Kourounakis and P. Macheras, S. Nikolaropoulos and G. Pairas (University of Patras), I. Panderi (Athens), A. Peletidi (University of Nicosia, Cyprus) and D. Rekkas (Athens). Board composition changes over time, so authors should always confirm the current masthead on the platform rather than relying on any secondary listing, this profile included.

Peer review, languages and publication charges

The journal states plainly that articles are published after blind peer review and are open accessed — there is no paywall between a published paper and its readers. Manuscripts may be written in English or in Greek; in the latter case an extended English abstract is required, a rule that keeps Greek-language work discoverable to international readers. A publication fee of €200 has been charged to authors as of 1 February 2024, and members of the Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry and the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society are discharged from that fee for scientific article submissions. Authors should read the current Author Guidelines on the official platform before submitting, because the platform itself notes that a new submission system is now in use and the older hsmc.gr website serves as an archive.

Indexing and metrics — read with care

The journal states that articles published in Pharmakeftiki are indexed in Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE, Scopus, EBSCO and Cabells Journalytics. The Journals World record carries an h-index of 7 for the title, consistent with the Scopus-based picture presented by SCImago, which lists the journal with an SJR of 0.121 and a Q4 standing in its pharmacology and pharmaceutical science categories. Two cautions belong on the record. First, SCImago's coverage line for the title (2008–2010, 2012–2022 in the listing consulted) ends earlier than the journal's actual life: the journal's own platform shows 2025 volumes and a 2026 volume in preparation, so the SCImago coverage dates describe that database's indexed run, not the journal's cessation. Whether Scopus coverage is current should be verified against the Scopus source list at the time of any submission decision. Second, OpenAlex tells a visibly different story: its source record for the print ISSN (OpenAlex source S7407067120) listed 204 works with a cited-by count of 0 at the time of checking, and the electronic ISSN returned no OpenAlex source at all. A zero citation count for a journal whose papers demonstrably attract citations is an artefact of incomplete citation linking in that corpus, not a measurement of the journal's real reception; the Scopus-derived h-index of 7 is the more meaningful figure, and readers should treat the OpenAlex numbers for this title as evidence of corpus incompleteness. Finally, a Directory of Open Access Journals search by both ISSNs returned no listing at the time of checking: the journal is genuinely open access, but it was not DOAJ-listed in the search results in hand, and this profile does not claim otherwise.

Who should consider publishing here?

Pharmakeftiki suits authors whose work speaks to the Greek and wider European pharmaceutical community: medicinal chemists, pharmaceutical technologists, analysts, clinical and community pharmacists, toxicologists and researchers working on the environmental behaviour of pharmaceuticals. Its society backing, blind review, modest and clearly stated fee, member exemption, and bilingual policy make it a realistic venue for early-career researchers and for Greek-language scholarship that needs an English abstract to travel. Authors whose institutions require indexing in specific databases should verify the current Scopus status directly, as advised above, and authors outside the two societies should budget the €200 fee. Researchers looking for a high-impact international pharmacy journal should understand that this is a Q4 society title whose value lies in community reach, professional relevance and a long continuous run — not in citation league tables.

The scope in depth

Each area the journal names has a distinct flavour in its pages, and authors judging fit should read the scope list against real published content rather than as a formality. Medicinal chemistry papers address the design and synthesis of bioactive compounds, the discipline of the founding society. Pharmaceutical analysis and technology covers the measurement and manufacturing science of medicines — assay methods, formulation behaviour and quality questions. Nanotechnology and nanomedicine, and the named pairing of computational drug design with artificial intelligence, signal that the editors actively want modern method-driven work, not only classical pharmacy. Drug delivery systems research — carriers, release profiles, targeting — sits naturally beside the nanomedicine stream. Clinical pharmacy brings the journal into wards and community practice: the 2025 medication-adherence study is a model of the genre, combining the Adherence to Refills and Medications Scale with Big Five personality markers in 178 chronic-disease patients, and finding that disease type and personality traits, conscientiousness in particular, significantly shaped adherence, with autoimmune patients adhering better than others. Toxicology and the environmental fate of pharmaceuticals extend the journal's reach from the patient to the ecosystem — how active ingredients behave once they leave the body and enter water and soil. Around these research streams the journal layers professional content: technological achievements, scientific-event reporting, and historical writing about the Greek profession itself, exemplified by its 2025 article on the history of the Greek pharmacy after the establishment of the Greek state (volume 37, issue III, pages 198–202).

A worked example of its recent content

The COVID-19 study in volume 37, issue II (pages 142–161) shows the journal's practice-facing side at full length. Written by researchers from the Department of Accounting and Finance at the Democritus University of Thrace, it used a quantitative design with primary research in the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace to examine how the pandemic changed the professional and social role of pharmacies and pharmacists — the skills and resources pharmacy staff brought to the crisis, the support systems around them, the challenges of daily operation under pandemic management, and the lasting references the period created for Greek health care. A pharmacy journal that publishes management-and-society research of this kind, alongside bench medicinal chemistry, is telling authors something important about its editorial breadth: the deciding test is relevance to pharmaceutical science and practice, broadly understood, rather than a narrow bench-science definition of the field.

Submission walk-through

Authors submit through the journal's current platform at pharmakeftiki.hsmc.gr; the journal itself warns that this is a new platform and that the old hsmc.gr website now acts as an archive, so bookmarks inherited from older papers may lead to the wrong place. Before submission, read the Author Guidelines linked from the platform and prepare the manuscript in English or Greek, remembering that Greek submissions need the extended English abstract. Expect blind peer review — the journal's stated model — and, on acceptance of a scientific article, the €200 publication fee unless the HSMC or HPS membership exemption applies to you. Because the journal is quarterly, accepted papers join a quarterly production rhythm rather than a continuous-publication stream; authors working to grant or thesis deadlines should factor that cadence into their plans and confirm current timelines with the editorial office, whose contact details appear in the printed mastheads. Conference organisers and guest editors interested in a special issue — one of the journal's established routes for disseminating conference papers and hot-topic collections — should approach the editors directly through the platform.

Pharmakeftiki in the Greek research landscape

Greece sustains a compact but complete pharmaceutical research ecosystem — schools of pharmacy at Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras, medicinal chemistry groups networked through the HSMC, and a large community-pharmacy sector that serves as both employer and research setting. Pharmakeftiki is that ecosystem's own journal: Greek-edited, Greek-society-backed, bilingual, and indexed for international discovery through Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE, EBSCO and Scopus as the journal states. For Greek doctoral candidates it offers a first peer-reviewed home whose readership is precisely the national community they will work in; for international readers it offers a window into Greek pharmacy practice and research that larger international titles rarely provide, including practice conditions in Greek regions and the profession's own history. That dual service — national forum, internationally discoverable — is the honest summary of the journal's role, and it is why a simple quartile label understates what the title does for its community.

Citing and finding Pharmakeftiki papers

Because the title is a single unhyphenated Greek word, its ISO 4 abbreviation is simply "Pharmakeftiki", and citations take the form Pharmakeftiki, volume, issue, pages — for example Pharmakeftiki 37(III): 186–197 for the 2025 adherence study. Current-platform articles also carry DOIs under the 10.60988 prefix, and citing the DOI is the safest route to a specific paper because it survives any future platform change. For discovery, the journal's own platform is the complete source: it carries the current issue, the archive of past issues and the submission system in one place, while the older hsmc.gr pages remain as an archive. Library discovery through Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE, EBSCO and Scopus — the services the journal names — will find most research content, but readers hunting a specific Greek-language paper, a professional-news item or a special-issue contribution should go to the platform itself, where the full quarterly run is presented issue by issue in both Greek and English dress.

Frequently asked questions

What are the ISSNs of Pharmakeftiki? Print ISSN 1105-4999; electronic ISSN 2241-3081.

Is Pharmakeftiki peer-reviewed? Yes. The journal states that articles are published after blind peer review.

Is Pharmakeftiki open access? Yes. It has been published online as an open access journal since 2012, alongside a print edition. It was not listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals in the search carried out for this profile.

How much does it cost to publish? A €200 publication fee has applied since 1 February 2024; members of the Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry and the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society are exempt from the fee for scientific articles.

Which languages does Pharmakeftiki accept? English or Greek; Greek-language articles require an extended English abstract.

Who stands behind the journal? It began within the Hellenic Society of Medicinal Chemistry and is supported by that society and by the Hellenic Pharmaceutical Society; the print operation is handled through Zita Medical Management, whose details appear in the issue mastheads.

What is the journal's h-index? The record's Scopus-based figure is 7. OpenAlex figures for this title are incomplete (204 works, no linked citations at checking) and should not be used as a measure of its impact.

Sources consulted for this profile: the journal's official platform and issue mastheads (pharmakeftiki.hsmc.gr), SCImago journal data as reproduced by secondary listings, OpenAlex source records for ISSN 1105-4999 (direct fetch), and a Directory of Open Access Journals ISSN search. Figures attributed to aggregators are labelled as such in the text.