n of Helsinki. All research protocols involving human participants, patient data, clinical intervention trials, or animal experimentation submitted from Iranian institutions must obtain approval from a recognized Institutional Review Board registered within the National Committee for Ethics in Biomedical Research (Iran Ministry of Health and Medical Education), and the official Ethics Committee Approval Code must be declared in the Materials and Methods section. Clinical interventional trials must be prospectively registered in a public clinical trial registry, such as the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) or equivalent WHO primary registries, with the valid trial identification number cited within the manuscript abstract and methodology. Studies involving animal subjects must document institutional animal care and use committee approval, verifying compliance with the ARRIVE reporting parameters and humane handling regulations.
Informed Consent and Subject Confidentiality
Authors must protect patient privacy and confidentiality. Informed written consent must be obtained from all human participants or their legally authorized representatives for participation and for the publication of any potentially identifiable personal, diagnostic, or photographic data. The consent to participate in a clinical study cannot be substituted for consent to publish identifiable case material. Identifying clinical descriptions, initials, or facial imagery must be omitted unless indispensable for scientific validity, in which case formal, explicit written patient consent must be documented.
Data Authenticity and Image Presentation
The manufacturing of fabricated data, fraudulent manipulation, selective omission of conflicting data, and inappropriate digital alteration of experimental images (such as electrophoretic gels, Western blots, and histology micrographs) constitute egregious research misconduct. Any graphical adjustment involving brightness, balance, or contrast must apply uniformly across the entire digital frame, must not distort, obscure, or delete specific visual information, and must be stated transparently in the figure legends. The journal reserves the right to demand raw, unprocessed instrument data, original laboratory records, and uncropped image files during review or subsequent inquiry.
Plagiarism and Redundant Publication
The journal applies systematic digital screening using iThenticate and validated text-matching software to identify textual overlap across all submissions upon initial intake and prior to formal publication. The journal operates a zero-tolerance framework toward textual plagiarism, patchwriting, redundant duplication, duplicate publication, uncredited intellectual property appropriation, and salami slicing (the fragmented publication of an interrelated experimental dataset). If substantial overlap or duplicate submission is uncovered, the manuscript will be rejected summarily, and notification will be sent to the authors’ affiliated institutions and relevant regulatory bodies following COPE procedural flowcharts.
Conflicts of Interest and Transparency
Authors, reviewers, and editors are required to disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest that could influence, or be perceived to influence, the reporting or appraisal of the scientific work. Authors must complete and sign standard ICMJE disclosure statements at submission. Financial sponsorships, corporate consulting engagements, honoraria, institutional support, commercial patent filings, and relevant corporate ties must be fully disclosed within the manuscript. In manuscripts authored by members of the editorial board, handling of the submission is transferred entirely to an independent guest editor, and the authoring editor is completely excluded from the review stream and editorial decision-making.
Article Processing Charges and Fee Waivers
Publishing operations for International Pharmacy Acta are supported by the Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. The jour
