Authors

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is a commissioned only journal, you can find out more about our content here. Commissioned authors will be provided with article type specifications and should refer to our general editorial policies below for further support.

Editorial Policy

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin is a commissioned only journal. The journal adheres to the highest standards concerning its editorial policies on publication ethics, scientific misconduct, consent and peer review criteria while following guidance produced by bodies that include the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). To view all BMJ Journal policies please refer to the BMJ Author Hub policies page, including information about our Editors’ roles and responsibilities.
We take all possible misconduct seriously. If an Editor, author or reader has concerns that a submitted article describes something that might be considered to constitute misconduct in research, publication or professional behaviour they should forward their concerns to the journal. The publisher will deal with allegations appropriately following ICMJE and COPE guidelines. Corrections and retractions are considered where an article has already been published; corrections, expressions of concern or retraction notices will be published as soon as possible in line with the BMJ correction and retraction policy.

Copyright and authors’ rights

Articles are published under an exclusive licence or non-exclusive licence for UK Crown employees or where BMJ has agreed CC BY applies. For US Federal Government officers or employees acting as part of their official duties, the terms are as stated in accordance with our licence terms. Authors or their employers retain copyright. Open access articles can be reused under the terms of the relevant Creative Commons licence to facilitate reuse of the content; please refer to the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin Author Licence for the applicable Creative Commons licences. More information on copyright and authors’ rights.
When publishing in Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, authors choose between three licence types – exclusive licence granted to BMJ, CC-BY-NC and CC-BY (Creative Commons open access licences require payment of an article processing charge). As an author you may wish to post your article in an institutional or subject repository, or on a scientific social sharing network. You may also link your published article to your preprint (if applicable). What you can do with your article, without seeking permission, depends on the licence you have chosen and the version of your article. Please refer to the BMJ author self archiving and permissions policies page for more information.

Conflicts of interest

BMJ is committed to ensuring the independence and integrity of our content, products, and services. We strive, therefore, to be transparent about any interests that our users, customers, and partners might want to know about. In order to maintain its independence, DTB has a strict policy on competing interests. In particular, we need to know if authors have any financial or advisory relationship (paid or unpaid) with the pharmaceutical industry or related healthcare products industry (e.g. medical devices or diagnostics), including the conduct of industry funded clinical trials. Declarations must cover the last three calendar years. All authors who write articles which could influence therapeutic choices (e.g. drug and treatment reviews or guidelines) must be free from conflict of interest as defined above. Members of the DTB Editorial Team must be free from conflict of interest with the healthcare industry. We request that our editors fill in a declaration of interest form and this information is updated annually and made publicly available. Authors are also asked to disclose any competing interests as outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors uniform declaration of competing interests:
  • Their associations with commercial entities that provided support for the work reported in the submitted manuscript (the time frame for disclosure in this section of the form is the lifespan of the work being reported).
  • Their associations with commercial entities that could be viewed as having an interest in the general area of the submitted manuscript (the time frame for disclosure in this section is the 36 months before submission of the manuscript).
  • Any similar financial associations involving their spouse or their children under 18 years of age.
  • Non-financial associations that may be relevant to the submitted manuscript.
Author COI statements will published as supplementary files with articles along with a summary statement at the beginning of articles. We also ask reviewers to provide statements of competing interests and we use these when assessing the value of peer review reports. We ask individual reviewers to provide a statement based on BMJ policy at the time they submit their review via our manuscript tracking system.

Provenance and peer review

Articles submitted to Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin are subject to peer review. The journal operates single anonymised peer review whereby the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author; usually two external reviewer reports are obtained before an article is accepted for publication. Articles authored by a member of a journal’s editorial team are independently peer reviewed; an editor will have no input or influence on the peer review process or publication decision for their own article. BMJ is committed to transparency. Every article we publish includes a description of its provenance (commissioned or not commissioned) and whether it was internally or externally peer reviewed. DTB requests that all reviewers adhere to a set of basic principles and standards during the peer-review process in research publication; these are based on the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Please refer to our peer review terms and conditions policy page.
We welcome reader responses, questions and comments to published content; these should be submitted electronically via the journal’s website. Please find further details about how to publish a response and the terms and requirements. Plagiarism Plagiarism is the appropriation of the language, ideas or thoughts of another without crediting their true source and representation of them as one’s own original work. BMJ is a member of CrossCheck by CrossRef and iThenticate. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of content submitted before publication. BMJ runs manuscripts through iThenticate during the peer review process. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting www.ithenticate.com.

Article processing charges

During submission, authors can choose to have their Review articles published open access for 3,245 GBP (exclusive of VAT for UK and EU authors). There are no submission, page or online-only colour figure charges.

Waivers and Discounts

If authors choose to publish their article open access, an APC waiver may be available. Before applying for an APC waiver please consider: (1) Does your institution have an open access agreement with BMJ? If it does, then this may cover all or part of the APC for your article. Check BMJ’s open access agreements page to find out whether your institution is a member and what discounts you may be entitled to. (2) Have you received funding from a funder with an open access mandate or policy that covers paying APCs? If so, BMJ expects that the APC will be paid in full.
If neither (1) nor (2) above apply then consider (3) Are all the authors of your article based in low-income countries*? If so, you are eligible to apply for a full or partial waiver from BMJ. Visit our author hub to learn more about our waivers policy and how to request one. Please note that regardless of the funding situation, authors can still choose to publish with us at no cost, and articles will be made available to our subscribers. *This list is reviewed annually and is based upon HINARI Core Offer Groups A and B, and the World Bank Country and Lending Groups.