Preparing for Submission

To reduce delays, authors should adhere to the level, length, and format of the journal at every stage of processing right from manuscript submission to each review stage. Editable Word files are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

• Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. Please submit your article via the submission page

Contact Information

For queries with your submission, please contact the team via email:

Editor in Chief

Dr. Marcello Iriti
Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, University of Milan (Università degli Studi di Milano), Milan, Italy.

Email: 

Contribution of Author

The credit of the authorship should be based on

Consequential inputs to the concept and design, procurement of data or analysis, and interpretation of data.

Preparing the article or revising it critically for an important matter.

Final confirmation of the adaptation to be published. All three conditions must be met by the authors. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or data or general supervision of the research group does not constitute authorship.

The author must include a proclamation mentioning each author's contribution. Please ensure that this is discussed with your co-authors and that compliance is reached before manuscript submission. Post-acceptance changes to the author list will not be permitted. The contribution statement is not included in the maximum word count.

Article Types

• Original Research Article

• Review Article

• Systematic Review

• Meta-Analysis

• Clinical Trial

• Cross-Sectional Study

• Case Study

• Methodological Paper

• Letter to the Editor

Original Research Articles

Original Research Articles report on primary scientific investigations and must present significant, original, and unpublished findings. Manuscripts are evaluated based on originality, scientific rigor, methodological soundness, and appropriateness of analysis. Submissions should follow the journal’s manuscript preparation guidelines and should not exceed 5,000 words (excluding references), with a maximum of 50 references, of which at least 70% should be from the last five years. A combined total of up to 7 tables and figures is allowed. Authors are required to use the journal’s official manuscript template.

Review Articles

Review Articles provide a comprehensive and critical synthesis of existing research on a defined topic. These articles should present a balanced analysis supported by relevant literature and clearly structured discussion. Reviews are expected to include an introduction, thematic analysis, and conclusion. All statements must be supported by appropriate citations. The word limit is 7,000 words (excluding references), with a maximum of 100 references, at least 70% of which should be from the last five years. Abstract, keywords, introduction, and conclusion sections are mandatory. Narrative Review Articles are not required to follow PRISMA reporting guidelines.

Systematic Reviews

Systematic Reviews should follow a structured and transparent methodology for identifying, selecting, and critically evaluating relevant studies. The methodology, inclusion and exclusion criteria, search strategy, and data synthesis approach must be clearly described. Manuscripts must be prepared and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 Statement. Authors should submit a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram as supplementary files whenever applicable. The word limit is 7,000 words (excluding references), with a maximum of 100 references. Authors should ensure rigorous methodological clarity, transparency, and reproducibility.

Meta-Analyses

Meta-Analyses involve statistical synthesis of results from multiple studies addressing a specific research question. Authors must clearly describe the statistical methods used for data pooling, heterogeneity assessment, sensitivity analysis, and publication bias evaluation. Manuscripts must be reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 Statement and should include a PRISMA flow diagram and checklist where applicable. The word limit is 7,000 words (excluding references), with a maximum of 100 references.

Case Studies

A Case Study provides an in-depth analysis of a single case, event, or subject that highlights unique clinical, computational, or scientific phenomena. Case Studies should include an introduction, case presentation, discussion, and conclusion. Authors are encouraged to follow the CARE (Case Report) Guidelines to improve completeness and transparency of reporting. The manuscript should not exceed 3,000 words (excluding references and tables), with a maximum of 50 references.

Cross-Sectional Studies

Cross-Sectional Studies are observational studies that analyze data at a single point in time to assess prevalence, associations, or generate hypotheses. Manuscripts must clearly describe study design, population, sampling methods, and statistical analyses. Authors are encouraged to follow the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) recommendations. The word limit is 3,000 words (excluding references), with a maximum of 50 references. Authors should highlight strengths, limitations, and practical implications.

Clinical Trials

All Clinical Trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) or an equivalent authority, and the registration number must be included in the manuscript. The study design, methodology, ethical approval, and reporting of outcomes must comply with relevant international clinical research standards. Authors are encouraged to follow the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines to ensure transparent reporting of clinical trial results.

Methodological Papers

Methodological Papers describe new or significantly improved experimental, computational, statistical, or AI-driven methods relevant to pharmaceutical and medical sciences. These manuscripts must provide sufficient detail to ensure reproducibility and may include validation studies or case applications. The emphasis should be on methodological innovation, reproducibility, and practical utility.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor are brief communications addressing previously published articles or topics of interest within the journal’s scope. They should provide constructive scientific discussion, critique, or clarification. Letters do not follow the structure of full research articles and should not exceed 1,500 words. Submissions are expected within six months of publication of the referenced article when applicable.

Article Type-Specific Requirements:

Preparation of Manuscript

The preferred word processing program for manuscript preparation is Microsoft Word. Authors must prepare their submissions using the journal's official manuscript template.

Authors should clearly indicate the manuscript category at the time of submission.

• Only manuscripts written in English will be considered for publication.

• Footnotes should be avoided whenever possible.

• Abbreviations, except for standard and widely accepted terms, should be defined at first mention in both the abstract and the main text.

• Units of measurement should be expressed according to the International System of Units (SI).

• Authors should ensure that the manuscript has been carefully proofread for grammar, spelling, and language accuracy prior to submission.

• Figures and tables should be placed as close as possible to their first citation in the text and not grouped at the end of the manuscript.

• The document may contain short subheadings; however, headings should be concise and generally not exceed 40 characters.

Submission of a manuscript implies that:

• The work has not been published previously.

• The manuscript is not under consideration by another journal.

• All authors have approved the submitted version.

• The authors agree to transfer copyright to the publisher upon acceptance.

• The corresponding author must provide complete contact information, including institutional affiliation, postal address, and e-mail address.

• A cover letter addressed to the Editor-in-Chief may accompany the submission and should specify the article type and briefly describe the significance of the work.

• All authors listed on the manuscript must meet the journal's authorship criteria and have made substantial contributions to the study.

• Studies involving human participants or animals must have received approval from an appropriate ethics committee or institutional review board. The approval number should be reported in the manuscript where applicable.

• Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) or an equivalent authority. The registration number must be included in the manuscript.

• Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses should be conducted and reported according to the PRISMA guidelines. Authors are encouraged to submit the completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram as supplementary materials.

• Authors who use generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools during manuscript preparation must disclose such use in the manuscript. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the submitted work.

All submitted manuscripts must include the following statements, where applicable:

• Author Contributions

• Acknowledgments

• Conflict of Interest

• Funding Statement

• Data Availability Statement

• Ethics Statement

Title Page

The first page should contain:

• Article type

• Full manuscript title (8–16 words)

• Running title (maximum 42 characters)

• Full names of all authors

• Complete affiliations of all authors

• ORCID iDs (recommended)

• Corresponding author's e-mail address and contact details

Abbreviations should not be used in the title whenever possible.

Authors and Affiliations

Below the title, list all authors with their complete affiliations. Each affiliation should include:

• Department

• Faculty/School (if applicable)

• Institution/University/Organization

• City

• State/Province (if applicable)

• Country

The corresponding author's e-mail address should appear on the title page.

Abstract

An abstract is required for all article types except Letters to the Editor.

• Original Research Articles, Clinical Trials, Cross-Sectional Studies, and Methodological Papers: 150–250 words.

• Review Articles, Systematic Reviews, and Meta-Analyses: up to 300 words.

• Case Studies: 150–250 words.

• Letters to the Editor: no abstract required.

The abstract should briefly state the objectives, methods, principal findings, and conclusions of the study.

Keywords

Authors should provide 4–6 keywords immediately after the abstract. Keywords should accurately reflect the content of the manuscript.

Main Text Structure

The structure of the manuscript depends on the article type.

Original Research Articles, Clinical Trials, and Cross-Sectional Studies

• Introduction

• Materials and Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusions

Review Articles

• Introduction

• Main Review Sections

• Discussion (optional)

• Conclusions

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

• Introduction

• Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusions

Case Studies

• Introduction

• Case Presentation

• Discussion

• Conclusions

Methodological Papers

• Introduction

• Method Description

• Validation and Evaluation

• Discussion

• Conclusions

Letters to the Editor

No mandatory section structure is required.

Acknowledgments

Individuals who contributed to the work but do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged with their permission.

Author Contributions

Authors should clearly describe their individual contributions to the study.

Conflict of Interest

All manuscripts must include a conflict of interest disclosure statement. If no conflicts exist, authors should state:

"The authors declare no conflict of interest."

Financial Support

Authors should disclose all sources of funding and provide grant numbers where applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Authors should indicate whether the data supporting the findings are publicly available, available upon reasonable request, or subject to restrictions.

Ethics Statement

Studies involving humans or animals must include an ethics approval statement and approval reference number where applicable.

Math formulae

Please submit math equations as editable text and not as images and numbers consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text.

e.g.

Tables/Figures

• Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Number tables consecutively following their appearance in the text and place any table notes below the table body.
• Ensure that all figures have a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. Please make sure that the figure files are in TIFF or JPEG format (300 dpi).

Mention all the tables and figures in the text as follows:

 (Table 1), (Figure 1)

References

The references should be listed on a separate sheet and should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text. Cite in the text by the appropriate Arabic number e.g. 1, 2, 3, and the numbers should be in the brackets. e.g [1], [1,3], [5-8], [5,6,12]

Reference list

Print articles

Electronic journal articles

Conference articles

Books and book chapters

Government and other reports 

Dictionaries and encyclopedias

From the Internet

Manuscripts Submission Steps

 logging in/creating an author account, uploading and submitting the manuscript and supplementary files, and checking the status of your article (submission page)

Decisions

 Corresponding authors will be notified by a notification in their submission panel. Once a decision regarding their articles has been made. If any further actions are required, they will be outlined in the submission dashboard.

Revisions

When revision of a manuscript is requested, it is important that the authors carefully follow the instructions given in the Editor’s comments, which include reviewers’ comments point-by-point. The editor may request the author/s to revise a manuscript more than once

Proof-Reading

Before publication of manuscripts, authors must proofread their articles for correctness. It is the author’s responsibility to complete the proofreading within 7 days.

Copyright and Access

Pharmacophore is an Open Access journal, and all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This license allows third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license. Creative Commons Corporation (“Creative Commons”) provides this license as a standardized framework for sharing original works of authorship and other materials subject to copyright and certain other rights. Here are the key points:

Sharing and Adaptation:

• You are free to share, copy, and redistribute the material covered by this license.
• Adaptation, remixing, and transformation are also allowed.
• Proper attribution to the original creator is essential, along with indicating any changes made.

Non-Commercial Use:

• The material cannot be used for commercial purposes.
• Educational, research, and personal projects fall within the non-commercial scope.
• Seek alternative permissions if you intend commercial use.

Share Alike Requirement:

• If you create derivative works based on this material, you must distribute them under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 terms.
• This ensures a chain of openness and collaborative sharing.

Author Rights:

• Authors retain copyright of their articles.
• Authors grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
• Authors may reuse their articles in any manner consistent with the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

License for Authors and Readers:

• This license allows authors and readers to use all articles, data sets, graphics, and appendices in data mining applications, search engines, websites, blogs, and other platforms by providing an appropriate reference (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
• All individual articles are available to readers without any restrictions.

Archiving:

• The publisher of journal ensures electronic backup of the published articles and website content regularly.
• All published articles are also being archived in a secondary backup database and are available for access.

Remember that Creative Commons licenses aim to strike a balance between openness and respecting creators’ rights. Always review the full license for legal details.

Proofs and Reprints

Electronic proofs will be sent (In the corresponding author’s profile) to the corresponding author as a PDF file. Page proofs are considered to be the final version of the manuscript. Except for typographical or minor clerical errors, no major changes will be made to the manuscript at the proof stage. Because  Pharmacophore will be published freely online, authors will have free electronic access to the full text (in both HTML and PDF) of the article.

Acknowledgments and Sources of Support

Authors must disclose all sources of support received for the research, including but not limited to financial grants, institutional funding, equipment, reagents, and pharmaceutical compounds. The specific roles of funding bodies should be described where applicable. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship — including laboratory technicians, research assistants, statistical consultants, and administrative personnel — must be acknowledged by name and contribution in this section, provided that written permission has been obtained from each individual named. Acknowledgment of AI-assisted tools used during manuscript preparation must also be declared in accordance with the journal's Generative AI Usage Policy.

Plagiarism, Duplicate Publication, and Concurrent Submission: Ethical Concerns in Research Publishing

Concurrent or duplicate submission is defined as the submission of a manuscript — or any substantially overlapping version thereof — to more than one peer-reviewed journal simultaneously, or the resubmission of previously published work without appropriate disclosure. Manuscripts submitted to the Pharmacophore must not have been previously published, accepted for publication, or be currently under review at any other journal or conference proceeding.

All submitted manuscripts are screened for textual similarity using iThenticate. Manuscripts with an overall similarity index exceeding 15% — excluding properly cited references, quoted material, and standard methodological language — will be rejected without peer review. Authors are advised to ensure that self-citation of their own prior work is appropriately referenced and does not constitute self-plagiarism. Detection of duplicate submission at any stage of the editorial process, including post-acceptance, may result in immediate rejection, retraction, and notification of the authors' institutions in accordance with COPE guidelines.

Withdrawal Policy

Once a manuscript has been accepted for publication in the journal, withdrawal is not permitted. However, if the withdrawal is eventually granted, the authors must pay the submission and processing fees, and submit to the Editorial Office, a document signed by all authors. Withdrawal of a published article is not an option, although such an article can be retracted for fraudulent reason/s.

Open access policy 

Pharmacophore releases all academic papers under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. As an open-access journal, all content is freely available to users and their institutions without any fees.

Key Points:

• Access and Use: Users are granted the permission to read, download, copy, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal.
• Non-Commercial Use: The materials cannot be used for commercial purposes without seeking alternative permissions.
• Attribution: Proper attribution must be given to the original authors and source.
• Share Alike: Any derivative works based on the materials must be distributed under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 terms.

Users do not need to seek prior permission from the publisher or the authors for these non-commercial uses, in accordance with the terms specified in the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

For more details about the license, please visit: Creative Commons License Details.

Publishing Schedule

 Pharmacophore is published online 6 times per year in (February, April , June , August, October, December).