<p ="margin-top: 10px; text-align: center;"><strong>Preface for advances in pharmaceutical analysis 2017</strong></p><p ="margin-top: 10px;">The year of 2017 is of historic importance for China. It was the year that China started to step into New Period. It was also the year that I had joined Wuhan University as a Luojia professor and set up my research group for ten years since I came back to China from University of Notre Dame, United States in 2007.</p><p ="margin-top: 10px;">During the past decade, great advances in the pharmaceutical analysis have been made in China. To improve the academic ex- change and international collaborations between Chinese scientists and international colleagues and to promote the development of pharmaceutical analysis and relative fields in the world, it is very significant to set up an international symposium as the platform of international academic exchange and collaborations. With the support of Wuhan University and international academic committees, the first international symposium on Advances in Pharmaceutical Analysis (APA) was started and successfully held in Wuhan University on November 17 to 19, 2017. The theme of APA 2017 was Beneficial Cooperation and Interdisciplinary Development. The scope of the symposium covered all aspects of pharmaceutical analysis and relative technologies.</p><p ="margin-top: 10px;">In APA 2017, more than 180 attendees participated in the symposium including worldwide leading scientists and chief editors of several international journals from 8 countries, namely China, United States, Japan, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherland and Korea. 52 lectures including plenary, keynote, invited and oral presentations and 45 poster presentations were scheduled in the scientific program with high academic level. 10 poster presentations were awarded in the closing ceremony with the sponsorship of <em>Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis</em> (JPA). The University of Lille was selected to organize APA 2018 in Lille, France on July 12–13, 2018. By taking this opportunity, I would like to thank all participants and organizations that supported APA 2017.</p><p ="margin-top: 10px;">To commemorate the successful inauguration of APA 2017, JPA decided to launch a special issue. I appreciate all the authors who contributed their papers in this issue. Finally, I hope that international symposium APA will play an important role in promoting the international exchange and collaboration of the communities and speeding up the development of pharmaceutical analysis and relative fields in the world.</p><p><>(/xss/)</></p>