The journal was established in 1995 and is published by the Nature Publishing Group. As with other Nature journals, there is no external editorial board, with editorial decisions being made by an in-house team, although peer review by external expert referees forms a part of the review process.
Original research articles published in Nature Medicine range from basic findings that have clear implications for disease pathogenesis and therapy to the earliest phases of human investigation. Aiming to keep Ph.D. and M.D. readers informed of a wide range of biomedical research findings, the journal publishes the latest advances in cancer biology, vascular biology, neuroscience, inflammatory disease, infectious disease and metabolic disorders, among other fields. Reviews, Perspectives and other commissioned content clarify and give context to these biomedical research advances, and the News section reports on the latest developments in drug research and development.