Future Perspectives in Drug Repurposing

Abstract

Drug repurposing offers a more efficient route to medicinal innovation than conventional new molecular entity research, and proposals for repurposing projects can come from in silico algorithms, pharmacological experimentation, clinical serendipity or retrospective analysis of human data. These approaches offer a much larger number of hypotheses for validation than can be resourced, and rigorous multidisciplinary prioritisation is required. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the potential for the approach, which has produced three clinically effective treatments in under a year, including two regulatory approvals for emergency use, and one drug with demonstrated efficacy against mortality. Challenges remain in how to provide additional commercial incentives for drug companies to support late-stage development of repurposing projects and fully realise its healthcare potential.