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When we inaugurated the Journal ofClinical Psychopharmacology (JCP) in 1981, we were riding a wave of discoveryof promising CNS-active agents. In the United States, most majorpharmaceutical manufacturers wereheavily invested in finding new chemical entities based on the animal modelsavailable at that time. The National Institutes of Health were aiding thediscovery process and scientists and ideas for a Decade of the Brain weregerminating, although fruition was not realized until 1990 when George H. Bushauthorized it. Now, 32 years later, we find, much to the dismay of the clinicalpsychopharmacology community, those suffering from emotional problems, andtheir concerned families, that many companies have reduced or eliminated theirdiscovery programs for new psychopharmacologic agents. Although some of thedeterminants of this downturn are financial (e.g., an increasingly high rate offailed trialswhich adds to the costs of development), some are structural(e.g., difficulties in recruitment of appropriate subjects), and others have todo with a reduced pipeline (e.g., a decrement in novel molecules). Fortunately,advances in pharmacogenomics, proteomics, and molecular pharmacology areproviding some hope for continued progress, and globalization of drug discoveryhas increased. In concert with the globalization and harmonization of productdevelopment, we are increasing our outreach to our increasingly globalreadership.
