Why don’t medicinal chemists from industry publish anymore?

In 1993, the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (JMC) published similar numbers of papers by chemists working in industry and by those in academia. Three decades on, the figures have changed drastically: the number of papers by industry chemists published in the journal has fallen, from 526 in 1993 to 154 in 2023. Meanwhile, the number of papers authored by researchers working in academia or government has more than doubled, from 566 in 1993 to 1,345 in 2023. Looking at it another way, in 1993, the numbers of academic and industrial chemists who published papers in JMC were roughly equal. In 2023, nearly nine times as many academic chemists published as industrial ones did.What’s more, in 1993, 6 out of the 10 most common affiliations of authors who submitted papers to JMC were companies. In 2023, none in the top 10 were, an analysis published in JMC in April found. In 2023, 8 out of the 10 most common affiliations of authors submitting to JMC were Chinese universities, none of which were in the top 10 in 1993. The sharp drop in journal papers by medicinal chemists working in industry may be due to outsourcing of chemistry to contract research firms that aren’t allowed to publish research on behalf of their clients, chemists changing jobs more frequently than in the past, and companies being more secretive to protect their intellectual property, among other factors. The discrepancy in publication trends between industry- and academia-affiliated authors was the topic of a recent editorial