Perspective of pharmaceutical sciences in Iran; Jobs remaining.

Iran is growing fast in production of science and technology in the world. Based on experts' opinion and reports of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), SCImago Journal and Country Rank, and Scopus it is concluded that the scientific field of Pharmacology Toxicology Pharmaceutics in Iran is growing very fast with great impact on the country science growth. Regarding various elements that have been involved in growth of sciences in Iran, focusing on quality of researches by the proposed methods in the present essay would be the key element of success in future.

The fact that Iran in the recent years is growing rapidly in terms of science and technology resuscitating its impressive history in science over the very ancient years where scientists like Razi and Ebn-E-Sina and Farabi conveyed unique inventions, ideas, and discoveries to the world (1) Recent report of NewScientist (2) about essay of UK's Royal Society (3) indicates that Iran's scientific output rose 18-fold between 1996 and 2008, from 736 published papers to 13,238 meaning that Iran has the fastest rate of increase in scientific publication in the world. Growth of Iranian science production has been ever underestimated because some of Iranian publications have not been recorded in scientometric databases and thus much higher records must be expected (4). According to The Royal Society report, Iran designed a comprehensive plan for science focusing on higher education and strengthening the links between industry and academia. In addition, Iran has allocated a big fund for nanotechnology research and boosted investment in research to 4% of GDP (0.59% of GDP in 2006), and is increasing found for education to 7% of GDP by 2030 (5.49% of GDP in 2007 (3).

Reviewing Scopus/Elsevier reveal that (5), a total of 133,325 scientific papers have been produced by Iranian scientists mainly in international journals (4) in the last 40 years, of which, almost 25% were categorized in the field of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (PTP). Data from Scopus also indicate a very rapid growth in PTP reaching from 3 indexed papers in 1972 to 1421 in 2010 meaning a 474-times growth in the number of publication only in the field of PTP. Most of publications were original articles and only a few were reviews or editorials. When data are searched for the keywords, it is evident that most of studies in the field of PTP were carried out in animals, in vitro and non-clinical models and few were clinical trials. Also, by categorizing data of PTP according to affiliation, it is found that Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) is ranked first followed by University of Tehran, Islamic Azad University, and then Shahid Beheshti Medical University (5). Data from Essential Science Indicator (6) indicate that TUMS has been listed among top 1% of the world in the fields of “Clinical Medicine”, “Pharmacology & Toxicology”, and “Social Sciences”. In the same report, only three scientists from TUMS have been listed as 1% top scientists who are ranked in the field of PTP. Considering citations of the papers there are almost 10 times increase in the number of citations during the last 10 years. Regarding international collaboration, as reported by NewScientists (2) and UK's Royal Society (3), scientific collaboration has increased between USA and Iran. Between the periods 1996 to 2008, co-authored papers between these two countries increased from 388 to 1,831 papers (3). Of course, data coming from Scopus (5) show no significant change in the rate of international collaboration for Iran during the years. According to UK's Royal Society, while the USA, Europe and Japan demonstrate a growing propensity to collaboration with global partners, China, Turkey and Iran are proportionally decreasing their collaborations. Meanwhile other growing scientific nations such as Saudi Arabia and South Africa are increasing their relative collaborations (3).

By examination of the relative production of science in the region and the world, a significant improvement was found in the field of PTP where the role of Iranian scientists cannot be ignored. When different subjects of this field are examined, it is clear that most of improvements have been in pharmacology, drug discovery, toxicology, and pharmaceutics. Interestingly, Iran is ranked on the top of the list in the Middle East region in pharmacology, drug discovery, toxicology (7). Data, especially those driven from ESI (6) about top subjects of research and top scientists of TUMS and those mentioned above led us to the conclusion that PTP in Iran is growing very fast with more impact on the country science growth. Thus, responsibilities of the scientists in the field of PTP compared to other areas is higher and thus it is time to review previous achievements for a better plan for the future and define strategies. The main problem is that H-index of Iran has not increased with the same speed as its publication number. For instance a comparison between Iran and Turkey or Malaysia in PTP in 2009, show that H-index of Turkey is 61, Iran is 37, and Malaysia is 30 while number of publications in Iran is 563, Turkey is 385, and Malaysia is 165 (7). Comparing the number of publications with that of H-index indicates Iran has to improve quality of its publications to get regular higher citations during the years. H-index assesses both quantity and quality of studies and thus an academic must have substantial number of papers to get a high h-index. If an academic or country show good citation metrics, it is very likely to make a marked impact on the field. The other point that should be emphasized is international collaboration that does not match with growth of science in PTP. Growth of science as a global enterprise to solve global problems depends on data collected from all around the world. It means increasing international collaboration is a must and should be the main aim of the strategy of all countries. Other important points are to encourage working in specific lines of research, team working by defining team members’ exact tasks and commitments, dedication to finish long-term projects and to report in a single article to get higher citation, improving systematic search and methodology to avoid repetition of other works that do not add to current knowledge of the world or even Iran, considering the country demand in all researches, publishing in indexed journals, introducing novel methods and study models, conducting systematic review/meta-analysis studies, avoiding delay between completion of the study and the final publication of manuscripts (this is the role of study supervisors), having collaboration of students investigation by meeting higher standards of ethics (8), improving criticism by holding journal clubs, always being in-time for all deadlines, higher honesty in thinking, collection and analysis of data, and writing whether they do not support their own theories, trying to get the idea from public and patent databases and industries, making sure that the project would contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field of PTP by validating or contradicting previous knowledge and considering cost-benefit issues in the field.

Furthermore it is recommended, if a new compound is synthetized chemically or extracted from the herb, after basic laboratory investigations and animal tests and defining efficacy and safety, the study must be continued by joining to other teams from clinic to evaluate safety, dose range, and side effects of this new treatment in a small group of healthy volunteers in phase 1 clinical trial; then it must be continued by determination of the safety and efficacy of the new treatment in larger and longer trials in patients (phases 2 and 3). Then, the efficacy and safety of this new treatment with existing treatments should be compared to complete customers’ needs and expectations.

This is an example of a novel research and publications with wide applications that meet a clearly defined market need. Of course in the recent years, there have been real examples for what I described. Introduction of Samelil (9) and Setarud (10) as new successful drugs have been completed by a joint cooperation of scientists in the field of PTP and those from different aspects of clinic that resulted in introduction of a product to market.

Once again, Iranian scientists in the field of PTP have done a good job but there are still more to be done.