Current Opinion in Investigational Drugs

Aims and organization
Current Opinion in Investigational Drugs is a monthly publication covering all therapeutic areas, in recognition of the
increasingly multi-disciplinary nature of modern drug discovery and development. With Current Opinion in Investigational
Drugs, we aim to help the reader by providing in a systematic manner:
• critical reviews of selected areas of investigational drug research
• expert evaluation of selected drugs currently in clinical trials
• selection of the most interesting papers and patents, annotated by experts.
Subject division
Six therapeutic categories are covered with each being featured in separate journal issues, and each therapeutic area being
covered twice-yearly. The broad therapeutic categories and the specialist topics within each are as follows:
• Anti-infectives Antifungals and antiparasitics; antibacterials (β-lactams, glycopeptides and other agents); antibacterials
(quinolones, macrolides and oxazolidinones); vaccines; antivirals (HIV); antivirals (non-HIV)
• Anti-inflammatory, Immunologicals and Biologicals Musculoskeletal; respiratory; dermatology; nervous system;
transplantation
• Cardiovascular and Renal Hypertension and renal failure; stroke and angina; arrhythmia and heart failure;
antithrombotics; hemostasis and hematological diseases; atherosclerosis, hypercholesterolemia and heart disease
• Endocrine and Metabolics Diabetes, reproductive endocrinology, hormone disorders, bone metabolism and obesity
• Central and Peripheral Nervous System Pain; neuro-urology and neurogastroenterology; neurodegenerative and
cognitive disorders; affective/behavioral/personality disorders and substance abuse; neurology and neuroprotection;
schizophrenia and psychosis
• Oncological Cell signaling modulators; cytotoxic drugs; immunotherapeutic drugs and monoclonal antibodies; protein
therapeutics, including growth factors; gene therapy; antisense inhibitors
Each issue also contains a general alerts section which covers all therapeutic areas.
Selection of topics to be reviewed Section Editors, who are major authorities in the field, are appointed by the Editors of
the journal. They divide their section into a number of topics, ensuring that the field is comprehensively covered and that all
issues of current importance are emphasized. Section Editors commission reviews from authorities on each topic that they
have selected. Section Editors also identify compounds of significant promise and commission expert evaluations of these
drugs. Submitted articles are peer reviewed before publication.
Contents
Patent alerts Brief commentaries on the scientific and/or commercial significance of new patents selected and written by
experts within their respective fields. These are presented beside the patent abstract from Patent fast-alert, published by
Thomson Current Drugs.
Paper alerts Expert commentary on a selection of recently published papers is provided.
Therapeutic overviews Short mini-reviews in which an area of interest to the pharmaceutical industry is critically reviewed in
the context of recent developments. These pieces are intended to be personal, thought-provoking and controversial, where
appropriate.
Reviews Authors write concise reviews in which they present recent developments in their subject, emphasizing the aspects
that, in their opinion, are most important and provide short annotations to the papers and patents that they consider to be the
most interesting from all those recently published in their topic. The reviews focus predominantly on investigational drugs, or
the therapeutic/commercial applications of new discoveries.
Drug evaluations Expert commentary on the scientific and commercial potential of selected drugs in clinical trials are
provided in each issue, in the form of drug evaluations. An evaluation is a review of the available literature (scientific and
commercial) and acts as an expert guide to the bibliography, highlighting references of particular interest. Opinion on the
drug's potential, with a personal viewpoint on its therapeutic and economic viability, are included. The bibliographies contain
only those papers referenced in the report, but readers may purchase the full bibliography, as it appears in Current Drugs'
Investigational Drugs database (IDdb), if they wish.
Literature classifications Key references relating to the drug are classified according to a set of standard headings to
provide a quick guide to the bibliography. These headings are as follows:
Chemistry: References which discuss synthesis and structure-activity relationships.
Metabolism: References which discuss metabolism, pharmacokinetics and toxicity.
Biology: References which disclose aspects of the drug's pharmacology in animal models.
Clinical: Reports of clinical phase studies in volunteers providing, where available, data on the following: whether the
experiment is placebo-controlled or double- or single-blind, number of patients, dosage.
Literature annotations Throughout the journal, a bulleting system is used to denote information deemed by the author or
editor to be either: • of special interest; or •• of outstanding interest.
Bi-annual indexes Every six months, following completion of coverage of each therapeutic area, cumulative indexes of
contents are provided.