Dear Reader,

Welcome to the final issue of Drugs in R&D for 2021.

I wish to reflect on this year’s achievements, and to thank all those who have contributed their time and effort to guarantee the quality of the content published in the journal.

In 2021, over 30 articles have been published. The high quality of content published in Drugs in R&D has been reflected in the most recent impact factor of 2.594 and CiteScore™ of 5.1.

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to present many challenges and I would like to thank all who have contributed to ensuring the journal has thrived despite the ongoing issues.

I would like to start by thanking the authors of the articles published in Drugs in R&D over the course of 2021. The enthusiasm of all authors for their chosen fields and their willingness to contribute content to the journal are crucial for its continued success.

The quality of published articles is also testament to the diligence of the peer reviewers. I would like to acknowledge the following individuals who acted as reviewers for Drugs in R&D in the last 12 months:

Richat Abbas, USA

Mohamed Ali, Egypt

Luis Alou, Spain

Mehmet M. Altintas, USA

Cristiano Amarelli, Italy

Sarah Anderson, USA

Jane P.F. Bai, USA

Gustavo Baldassarre, Italy

Paul Bastard, France

Stefania Bellino, Italy

Ragna Berthelsen, Denmark

Ramesh Bionpally, USA

Emanuele Bizzi, Italy

Serhat Bor, Turkey

Steven Brenner, USA

Ali Canbay, Germany

Enrique Carrazana, USA

Chiranjib Chakraborty, India

Phyllis Chan, USA

Sarika Chaudhary, India

Nevio Cimolai, Canada

Timothy Clinton, USA

Hugo L. Corrêa, Brazil

Dorota Danielak, Poland

Alessandro Di Filippo, Italy

Min Dong, USA

Ramón Eizaga Rebollar, Spain

Sandro Feriozzi, Italy

Michael Fettiplace, USA

Chris M. Florkowski, New Zealand

James Galloway, UK

Colin Geddes, UK

Johanna Gehin, Norway

Navin Goyal, USA

Andreas H. Groll, Germany

Sebastian Harder, Germany

Kazuhiko Hashimoto, Japan

Nadine Herrmann, Germany

Paul R. Hutson, USA

Florenzo Iannone, Italy

Berengere Koehl, France

Antonios Kolocouris, Greece

Magdalena Krajewska, Poland

Yi-Yang Lau, USA

Maxime Léger, France

David Mantle, UK

Maximilian Marhold, Austria

Ron H.J. Mathijssen, The Netherlands

Giuseppe Micali, Italy

Takashi Nakayama, Japan

Luigi Naldi, Italy

Peter Nordbeck, Germany

Aditya Padhi, Japan

Jignesh P. Patel, UK

Antoine Petitcollin, France

Nunzia Prencipe, Italy

Paul Reynolds, USA

Giovanni Rolla, Italy

Jungsu Ryu, USA

Ayad Sabry, USA

Yosuke Saka, Japan

Shigetoshi Sano, Japan

Luis Sargento, Portugal

Mitsuhito Sasaki, Japan

Regina Scherließ, Germany

Ulrich Strassen, Germany

Julie J.D. Suman, USA

Navin Suthahar, The Netherlands

Omer Toprak, Turkey

Malgorzata Trocha, Poland

Periklis Tsiros, Greece

Geoffrey T. Tucker, UK

Gian Van Vo, Vietnam

Hiroki Wakabayashi, Japan

Karin Weissenborn, Germany

Rene Westhovens, Belgium

Tony Whitehouse, UK

Uwe Wollina, Germany

Eugene E. Wright Jr, USA

Chun-Yi Wu, USA

Kanatani Yashuhiro, Japan

Masahiro Yasunaga, Japan

Jana Zdarova Karasova, Czech Republic

Enrico Zelin, Italy

Vincent Zimmer, Germany

Peying Zuo, USA

I am also very grateful to the members of the journal’s Honorary Editorial Board, who have acted as peer reviewers and authors, and have provided guidance on journal content, policy and processes.

Springer Nature has continued to support the global response to COVID-19 by making all relevant content immediately and freely available. Indeed, Drugs in R&D has published a number of papers relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic that are free to access, including:

The editorial program for 2022 is well under way, and I am looking forward to bringing you many high-quality and authoritative articles in the field of pharmacology over the coming year.

I thank you for your continued support.

With best wishes,

Anton van Rensburg