Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Pharmaceutical Science journal rankings 2021
42 ranked journals · Subfield in Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics
Pharmaceutical Science has 42 ranked journals in 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.64, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.01 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 1.22. The top three are Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, Drug Delivery, and Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (4)
42 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Expert Opinion on Drug DeliveryTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 2.06Q1 | 7.43 0.13 up from 2020 | 321 | 28% | — | ||
2Drug DeliveryOATaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.93Q1 | 6.89 0.81 down from 2020 | 453 | 100% | $2,864 | ||
3Journal of Pharmaceutical InvestigationSpringer Science+Business Media · South Korea | 1.80Q1 | 7.86 0.74 up from 2020 | 112 | 16% | $3,890 | ||
4International Journal of PharmaceuticsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.60Q1 | 6.53 0.43 up from 2020 | 2,770 | 30% | $4,650 | ||
5European Journal of Pharmaceutics and BiopharmaceuticsElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.51Q1 | 5.45 0.81 down from 2020 | 830 | 40% | $4,210 | ||
6Drug Delivery and Translational ResearchSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.51Q1 | 5.98 0.92 up from 2020 | 395 | 43% | $4,690 | ||
7European Journal of Pharmaceutical SciencesOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.37Q1 | 5.46 0.94 up from 2020 | 1,177 | 39% | $3,070 | ||
8International Journal of Pharmaceutics XOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.29Q1 | 5.09 0.55 up from 2020 | 61 | 100% | $2,590 | ||
9Pharmaceutical ResearchSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.27Q1 | 4.78 0.09 up from 2020 | 661 | 36% | $4,690 | ||
10Scientia PharmaceuticaOAÖsterreichische Apotheker-Verlagsgesellschaft m. b. H. · Switzerland | 1.24Q1 | 5.66 1.26 up from 2020 | 144 | 100% | $1,207 | ||
11Journal of Drug Delivery Science and TechnologyElsevier BV · France | 1.22Q1 | 5.07 0.65 up from 2020 | 1,681 | 11% | $3,810 | ||
12AAPS PharmSciTechSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.15Q2 | 4.58 0.73 up from 2020 | 901 | 27% | $4,190 | ||
13Journal of MicroencapsulationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 1.08Q2 | 3.91 0.31 up from 2020 | 181 | 5% | — | ||
14Drug Development and Industrial PharmacyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.98Q2 | 3.83 0.25 up from 2020 | 538 | 16% | — | ||
15Therapeutic DeliveryFuture Science Ltd · United Kingdom | 0.95Q2 | 3.99 0.89 up from 2020 | 207 | 17% | — | ||
16Pharmaceutical NanotechnologyBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.95Q2 | 4.51 0.92 up from 2020 | 107 | 23% | — | ||
17Pharmaceutical Development and TechnologyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.91Q2 | 3.34 0.29 up from 2020 | 297 | 19% | — | ||
18Future Journal of Pharmaceutical SciencesOASpringer Science+Business Media · Egypt | 0.89Q2 | 2.67 1.85 down from 2020 | 180 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
19Current Drug DeliveryBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.73Q2 | 2.81 0.23 down from 2020 | 300 | 8% | — | ||
20Journal of Pharmaceutical InnovationSpringer Science+Business Media · United Kingdom | 0.70Q2 | 2.52 0.41 up from 2020 | 204 | 23% | $3,990 | ||
21Critical Reviews in Therapeutic Drug Carrier SystemsBegell House · United States | 0.68Q2 | 2.04 1.32 down from 2020 | 49 | 21% | — | ||
22Brazilian Journal of Pharmaceutical SciencesOAUniversity of São Paulo · Brazil | 0.61Q3 | 1.72 0.06 up from 2020 | 458 | 100% | — | ||
23Recent Patents on Drug Delivery & FormulationBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.56Q3 | 1.80 0.03 down from 2020 | 73 | — | — | ||
24Assay and Drug Development TechnologiesMary Ann Liebert, Inc. · United States | 0.50Q3 | 2.30 0.79 up from 2020 | 132 | 5% | — | ||
25Journal of Fluorine ChemistryElsevier BV · Netherlands | 0.47Q3 | 1.83 0.06 down from 2020 | 539 | 14% | $3,660 | ||
26Recent Patents on NanotechnologyBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.41Q3 | 1.66 0.28 up from 2020 | 100 | 17% | — | ||
27ADMET & DMPKOAInternational Association of Physical Chemists (IAPC) · Croatia | 0.37Q3 | 1.45 0.19 down from 2020 | 73 | 100% | — | ||
28Indian Journal of Pharmaceutical Education and ResearchAssociation of Pharmaceutical Teachers of India · India | 0.30Q3 | 0.94no change | 494 | 97% | — | ||
29Dissolution TechnologiesUnited States | 0.30Q3 | 0.82 0.04 down from 2020 | 82 | 93% | — | ||
30Turkish Journal of Pharmaceutical SciencesOAGalenos Yayinevi · Türkiye | 0.30Q3 | 1.11 0.50 up from 2020 | 378 | 100% | — | ||
31PharmatutorOAIndia | 0.27Q3 | 0.56 0.06 down from 2020 | 126 | — | — | ||
32Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and DevelopmentOASociety of Pharmaceutical Tecnocrats · India | 0.26Q3 | 0.76 0.19 up from 2020 | 196 | 100% | — | ||
33MOJ Bioequivalence & BioavailabilityMedCrave Group · United States | 0.25Q4 | 2.00 1.34 up from 2020 | 44 | — | — | ||
34Journal of Drug Delivery and TherapeuticsOASociety of Pharmaceutical Tecnocrats · India | 0.23Q4 | 0.73 0.20 up from 2020 | 1,852 | 100% | — | ||
35Drug Delivery LettersBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.22Q4 | 0.85 0.11 up from 2020 | 89 | 5% | — | ||
36International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical SciencesOAInnovare Academic Sciences · India | 0.22Q4 | 0.70 0.07 down from 2020 | 638 | 100% | — | ||
37Current NanomedicineNetherlands | 0.19Q4 | 0.49 1.07 down from 2020 | 71 | 17% | — | ||
38Current Drug TherapyBentham Science Publishers · Netherlands | 0.18Q4 | 0.66 0.31 up from 2020 | 99 | 11% | — | ||
39American Journal of Advanced Drug DeliveryOAUnited States | 0.15Q4 | 0.59 0.45 up from 2020 | 59 | 100% | — | ||
| 0.13Q4 | 0.29 0.06 down from 2020 | 81 | 100% | — | |||
41British Journal of PharmacyOAUniversity of Huddersfield Press · United Kingdom | 0.07Q4 | 0.31 0.08 up from 2020 | 47 | 100% | — | ||
| 0.00Q4 | 0.00 0.04 down from 2020 | 53 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics, with Pharmaceutical Science highlighted.
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
18 additional Pharmaceutical Science journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 42
- Window papers (baseline)
- 18,805 +0.2% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.64 -1.4% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 4
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 13 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 20 | 22 | 23 | 27 | 31 | 36 | 41 | 43 | 44 | 43 | 43 | 45 | 41 | 42 | 42 | 43 | 42 | 43 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 7,475 | 7,588 | 7,654 | 8,087 | 8,285 | 8,674 | 8,975 | 9,518 | 10,113 | 10,822 | 11,808 | 12,971 | 14,267 | 15,539 | 16,907 | 17,880 | 18,737 | 18,998 | 18,769 | 18,134 | 17,898 | 18,805 | 19,869 | 20,406 | 20,468 | 20,952 | |
| Median OJR | 0.620 | 0.6911 | 0.623 | 0.85 | 0.826 | 0.77 | 0.81 | 0.89 | 0.82 | 0.91 | 0.828 | 0.880 | 0.879 | 0.72 | 0.6908 | 0.657 | 0.54 | 0.57 | 0.65 | 0.53 | 0.655 | 0.64 | 0.70 | 0.63 | 0.61 | 0.68 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.