Drug Repurposing in Neurological Diseases: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Drug repurposing or repositioning refers to “studying of clinically approved drugs in one disease to see if they have therapeutic value and do not trigger side effects in other diseases.” Nowadays, it is a vital drug discovery approach to explore new therapeutic benefits of existing drugs or drug candidates in various human diseases including neurological disorders. This approach overcomes the shortage faced during traditional drug development in grounds of financial support and timeline. It is especially hopeful in some refractory diseases including neurological diseases. The feature that structure complexity of the nervous system and influence of blood–brain barrier permeability often becomes more difficult to develop new drugs in neuropathological conditions than diseases in other organs; therefore, drug repurposing is particularly of utmost importance. In this chapter, we discuss the role of drug repurposing in neurological diseases and make a summarization of repurposing candidates currently in clinical trials for neurological diseases and potential mechanisms as well as preliminary results. Subsequently we also outline drug repurposing approaches and limitations and challenges in the future investigations.