The Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. journal, Drug Repurposing, Rescue, and Repos
itioning (DRRR) seemed to have a good start with its inaugural issue. Meanwhile, the publisher has decided that this fledgling product needs “incubation” under the wing of their long-established journal, ASSAY and Drug Development Technologies where DRRR will be hosted as a semi-annual Special Issue.
Now a good part of drug repurposing is indeed about assays, model organisms, and laboratory technologies; but that is not nearly all of it. To accommodate clinical and regulatory matters, intellectual property strategies, and so on we will have to stretch ASSAY’s frame of coverage quite a bit. The good thing is that ASSAY is already indexed in PubMed, a status that DRRR could not have achieved within the next two years. That should help us greatly with attracting quality manuscripts, at least those that also fit the classical roster of ASSAY.
DRRR had been created to provide an integrative peer review publishing platform that would present a holistic view of the challenges and needs of drug repurposing – from the wet lab to the patent office, to the clinic, and beyond. Only those who want to see their work published can decide if such a journal is needed. If people are satisfied to publish in journals that are less broad in scope but might have a tight fit with the particular subject (and a higher impact factor, at least for the moment), they will submit their drug repurposing papers elsewhere; and we will have learned an important lesson.
And so we are pushing ahead with the ASSAY Special Issues … without dropping the original idea. Send us any good manuscript that has a solid relationship to drug repurposing (submission guidelines here), including those that you might not consider for ASSAY otherwise, and be assured that it will be reviewed promptly and diligently.
The life sciences are not without their hypes, but drug repurposing is not one these. It is here to stay, for a simple reason: it is a rock-solid strategy that fits the current drug development environment perfectly. This rising tide will eventually create the need for a publishing hub such as DRRR, whatever its name might ultimately be.