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Subfield · Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics

Drug Discovery research

Drug Discovery is a subfield of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics. Science Explorer counts 4.9k research works in it since 1954. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: the process by which new candidate medications are discovered.

Research works
4.9k
fractional, since 1954
In the world top 10%
498
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
1
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+92%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
India
54% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Drug Discovery

Which countries lead Drug Discovery research?

On research quality in 2022-now, India and Indonesia rank highest in Drug Discovery. By volume, India and Indonesia publish the most (1.3k and 602 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 India #1 all time 1.00× citation excellence · 0.45× journals · 100% breadth 11.7% top 10% · 755 works
  2. 2 Indonesia #2 all time 0.85× citation excellence · 0.06× journals · 100% breadth 4.1% top 10% · 463 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 2 countries ranked in Drug Discovery. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in Drug Discovery

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 India 1.3k works
  2. 2 Indonesia 602 works
  3. 3 Iraq 106 works
  4. 4 United States 104 works
  5. 5 Nigeria 89 works
  6. 6 Pakistan 64 works
  7. 7 Bangladesh 44 works
  8. 8 Iran 40 works
  9. 9 Egypt 40 works
  10. 10 China 32 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

India: 53.8%Indonesia: 24.8%Iraq: 4.4%United States: 4.3%6 others listed: 12.7%54%largest
India1,307 · 53.8%Indonesia602 · 24.8%Iraq106 · 4.4%United States104 · 4.3%6 others listed309 · 12.7%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Drug Discovery research?

By volume in 2022-now, Desh Bhagat Ayurvedic College and Hospital publishes the most Drug Discovery research, followed by Government Ayurvedic College and Hospital and Airlangga University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Desh Bhagat Ayurvedic College and HospitalIndia 35 works
  2. 2 Government Ayurvedic College and HospitalIndia 28 works
  3. 3 Airlangga UniversityIndonesia 27 works
  4. 4 Hindu College of PharmacyIndia 26 works
  5. 5 Saveetha UniversityIndia 22 works
  6. 6 All India Institute of Medical SciencesIndia 22 works
  7. 7 Government Ayurved College, NandedIndia 21 works
  8. 8 University of CalicutIndia 19 works
  9. 9 Banaras Hindu UniversityIndia 17 works
  10. 10 Universitas Prima IndonesiaIndonesia 15 works

Who are the leading researchers in Drug Discovery?

Counting only their work in Drug Discovery, Mushtaq Ahmad, Shazia Sultana and Muhammad Naveed Zafar have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 Mushtaq Ahmad Pakistan · #1,923,806 worldwide overall 3.8 of 5 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Shazia Sultana Pakistan · #1,393,231 worldwide overall 3.5 of 4 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Muhammad Naveed Zafar Pakistan · #1,469,957 worldwide overall 3.5 of 5 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Sujit Nair United States · #775,676 worldwide overall 1.5 of 2 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Gayatri Pramod Ganu India · #4,962,949 worldwide overall 2.0 of 2 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 5 Prashant Mathur India · #67,469 worldwide overall 1.2 of 2 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Sumaiya Parveen India · #1,097,703 worldwide overall 1.0 of 1 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Muhammad Shoaib Amjad Pakistan · #847,399 worldwide overall 1.3 of 1 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Ghulam Yaseen Pakistan · #4,119,048 worldwide overall 2.0 of 2 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 9 Muhammad Ovais China · #59,997 worldwide overall 0.8 of 1 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in Drug Discovery alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 27,998 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 Drug Discovery researchers

What are the most cited papers in Drug Discovery?

The most cited paper in Drug Discovery is "HPV Screening for Cervical Cancer in Rural India" (Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Bhagwan M. Nene, Surendra Srinivas Shastri et al., 2009), with 1,300 citations. Next come "Worldwide burden of cervical cancer in 2008" (1,150) and "Antioxidant activity, total phenolic and total flavonoid contents of whole plant extracts Torilis leptophylla L" (1,117).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 HPV Screening for Cervical Cancer in Rural India Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan, Bhagwan M. Nene, Surendra Srinivas Shastri et al. · New England Journal of Medicine Apr 2009 1,300
2 Worldwide burden of cervical cancer in 2008 Marc Arbyn, Xavier Castellsagué, Silvia de Sanjosé et al. · Annals of Oncology Open access 7 Apr 2011 1,150
3 Antioxidant activity, total phenolic and total flavonoid contents of whole plant extracts Torilis leptophylla L Naima Saeed, Muhammad Rashid Khan, Maria Shabbir · BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine Open access 15 Nov 2012 1,117
4 A cross-cultural analysis of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh (India) medicinal plant use Sumeet Gairola, Jyotsana Sharma, Yashbir Singh Bedi · Journal of Ethnopharmacology 18 Jun 2014 1,001
5 Scientific basis for the therapeutic use of Withania somnifera (ashwagandha): a review. Lakshmi-Chandra Mishra, Betsy B Singh, Simon Dagenais · PubMed Aug 2000 779
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Drug Discovery research done?

The largest centres of Drug Discovery research in 2022-now are Chennai (India), Jakarta (Indonesia), New Delhi (India) and Surabaya (Indonesia). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Amloh and Nanded.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 ChennaiIndia 95 works
  2. 2 JakartaIndonesia 56 works
  3. 3 New DelhiIndia 52 works
  4. 4 SurabayaIndonesia 49 works
  5. 5 MedanIndonesia 44 works
  6. 6 BengaluruIndia 42 works
  7. 7 JaipurIndia 41 works
  8. 8 GuwahatiIndia 39 works
  9. 9 AmlohIndia 38 works
  10. 10 PuneIndia 37 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. AmlohIN · 38.4 works161×
  2. NandedIN · 24.4 works53×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Drug Discovery than the world average.

See Drug Discovery on the map

Drug Discovery research by country

The best places for Drug Discovery research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study Drug Discovery?

Among universities, judged by research, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Saveetha University and Banaras Hindu University score highest, combining citation excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 11.19%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Saveetha UniversityBanaras Hindu Univer…All India Institute …Hindu College of Pha…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Citation excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1All India Institute of Medical SciencesIndia 85.314.9%8.3×22 +113.5%
2Saveetha UniversityIndia 83.415.7%9.9×22 +1.0%
3Banaras Hindu UniversityIndia 81.315.2%9.3×17 +152.1%
4Hindu College of PharmacyIndia 77.010.9%107.6×26 +241.0%
5Airlangga UniversityIndonesia 69.87.1%12.8×27 +92.0%
6Manipal Academy of Higher EducationIndia 62.217.2%5.3×9 +35.6%
7University of CalicutIndia 60.57.5%46.8×19 +227.6%
8University of BaghdadIraq 52.77.3%8.4×14 +243.5%
9Padjadjaran UniversityIndonesia 47.912.4%6.8×14 -7.6%
10Government Ayurved College, NandedIndia 47.13.7%196.5×21 -

Universities only. The score blends citation excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Drug Discovery, country by country

Is Drug Discovery research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 92% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2026. The fastest-growing topics are Pharmacology and Nanomedicine Research.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Drug Discovery as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.0065% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Drug Discovery0.015% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Drug Discovery over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Drug Discovery10.6% in 202520102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does Drug Discovery include?

Discussion

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