Drug Repurposing

Drug repurposing is a research strategy which be used to identify new uses for approved or investigational drugs outside the scope of their initial medical indication. Compared with the development of a new drug, drug repurposing has many advantages. First, there is a lower risk of failure, and drugs that have been tested early have been shown to be safe enough in preclinical models and humans. Therefore, these compounds are less likely to fail due to safety issues in subsequent tests. Second, the drug development time is short, because most of the preclinical testing of the drug, safety assessment and a series of tests have been completed. Third, the investment required is low, and there may be substantial savings in preclinical and phase I and phase II costs for new drugs for the same indications. Finally and most importantly, drug repurposing may reveal new disease targets and pathways. Up to now, through the research strategy of drug repurposing, a variety of marketed drugs have been applied to new indications (Table 1).