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Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Letter to the Editor

The European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and the Journal

Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology

This issue of

Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology

(BCPT) marks the startof a new chapter in the combined history of the journal and the European Associationfor Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT). In the past, BCPT has beenassociated with EACPT by printing the abstracts of our congresses, but the twoorganizations have recently signed an agreement whereby the BCPT becomes thepreferred journal of EACPT, and EACPT looks forward to working closely withBCPT to further our joint interests in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics.

The EACPT was founded in 1993 at a meeting in Verona, Italy, and its originsstemmed from work undertaken through the European office of the World HealthOrganization (WHO) in the 1980s. We held our first congress in Paris in 1995 and wehave held congresses in alternate years ever since with the venues being Berlin (1997),Jerusalem (1999), Odense (2001), Istanbul (2003) and Poznan (2005). The only excep-tion to this biennial arrangement was in 2000 when EACPT held a joint congress withthe Clinical Division of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology(IUPHAR) in Florence. Our future planned congresses are in Amsterdam in lateAugust 2007, Edinburgh in 2009 and Budapest in 2011.

The aims of EACPT are:1. to promote the use of clinical pharmacological services in the delivery of health care;2. to improve and harmonize the teaching of the rational use of drugs at both

undergraduate and postgraduate levels;3. to contribute with clinical pharmacological expertise to state policy decisions

regarding the regulation of drugs in Europe;4. to arrange scientific meetings, workshops and courses in clinical pharmacology

and therapeutics in Europe;5. to utilize the skills of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics to counteract the

misuse of prescription drugs and other chemical substances;6. to promote problem and patient-orientated drug information about medicaments

for physicians and other health professionals;7. to increase the input of clinical pharmacological skills in the clinical evaluation

of drugs;8. to promote high professional standards in the prescription of drugs;9. to promote high ethical standards in clinical drug research;

10. to promote the exchange of opinions in individual countries with regard toexisting differences in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics; and

11. to encourage collaboration with other agencies interested in clinical pharmacologyand therapeutics (e.g. WHO, IUPHAR).

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To illustrate some of the above aims mention can be made of the summer schoolsin Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (CPT) that EACPT has arranged over thelast 6 years or so. Summer school meetings have been held in Turkey, Hungary, Bul-garia and most recently in Serbia where more than 250 scientists registered to attendthe summer school in Vrsac, near the Romanian border. We hope that by holding suchmeetings particularly aimed at young scientists, we can stimulate the development inCPT in these and nearby countries. The next summer school will be held in 2007 in Bel-gium and a school is being planned in Spain in 2008. EACPT also funds scholarships tohelp young scientists to attend both the summer schools and the biennial congresses.

The EACPT is also very keen to support the teaching of CPT both in undergraduatemedical schools and to postgraduates. The Education Sub-Committee of EACPT isnow chaired by Professor Theo de Vries from the Netherlands and a number of initi-atives are being taken, not the least of which is a proposal to try to harmonize theundergraduate teaching of CPT to medical undergraduates. An initial step in medicalschools in Germany, the UK and Croatia has shown that such an approach is feasible.

The EACPT has an Executive Committee on which 13 countries are represented.The initial chairman was Professor Folke Sjoqvist and my immediate predecessor wasProfessor Giampaolo Velo. The Executive Committee meets twice each year but themain decision-making body is the Council that currently has 65 members. Theseindividuals are elected by the members of EACPT that are the national societies ofCPT in each country. EACPT has no system for recognizing individual clinicalpharmacologists as members. Each country elects between one and four delegates tothe Council depending on the number of members of the national society, and a newCouncil (and Executive Committee) is elected every 4 years with the next electiondue in 2007. There are currently 32 countries who are members of EACPT and theyrepresent just under 5,000 individual clinical pharmacologists.

This is just a thumbnail sketch of EACPT and its activities and if you are interestedin having more detail then please consult our web site (www.eacpt.com). I look forwardto working in future with BCPT and its editorial staff and I would like to thank theeditor and chairman of BCPT for the warm welcome that EACPT has received andfor the very positive atmosphere in which the negotiations were conducted. The nextcongress of EACPT will be held from 29 August to 1 September 2007 in Amsterdam,and I look forward to welcoming readers of BCPT to that congress, the abstracts ofwhich I expect to be published by BCPT.

Michael OrmeChairman of EACPT 2003–2007 Emeritus Professor, Liverpool University, UK