multiple myeloma

From target identification to clinical research, traditional drug discovery and development is a time-consuming and costly process, which also bears high risk. Compared with traditional drug discovery, drug repositioning or repurposing, also known as old drugs for new uses can greatly shorten the development cycle and reduce development cost, which has become a new trend of drug development. After undergoing clinical trials, approved drugs have identified bioactivities, good pharmacokinetic characteristics and safety, which can greatly improve the success rate of drug discovery. A number of successes have been achieved, such as metformin for type 2 diabetes and thalidomide for leprosy and multiple myeloma, etc.

MCE provides a unique collection of 1390 China NMPA (National Medical Products Administration) approved compounds, which have undergone extensive preclinical and clinical studies and have well-characterized bioactivities, safety and bioavailability properties. MCE NMPA-Approved Drug Library is a good tool for drug repurposing which could dramatically accelerate drug development.

Withdrawal or delisting drugs refer to drugs that are recalled or discontinued from the market due to low efficiency, serious side effects, financial and regulatory problems and other reasons. Once the drug is withdrawn from the market, it will cause heavy losses to the original research company that invested a lot of time, finance and other costs to develop the drug.

Adverse drug reaction (ADR) is the main reason for drug withdrawal from the market. ADR refers to the unexpected effects caused by the reasons such as the target-directed interaction during the treatment. However, studying the mechanism of these ADRs may just be a breakthrough in finding new indications. For example, thalidomide, the protagonist of the drug damage event that caused numerous "seal babies" deformed infants, was found to be due to the degradation of a transcription factor - SALL4 after delisting, which made thalidomide have a new clinical application. In 1998, it was approved by FDA for the treatment of leprosy nodular erythema, and in 2006, it was approved for the treatment of multiple myeloma. ADR study of delisted drugs can not only avoid the loss of drug development in advance but also bring hope to new indications.

MCE has sorted out 198 drug compounds withdrawn from the market through FDA, EMA and other authoritative platforms. Each compound has withdrawal records in at least one country/market. It is a useful tool for conducting research on drug side effects or drug toxicity mechanisms and discovering new indications of drugs.