Drug Repurposing

Drug Repurposing describes the strategy of identifying new therapeutic indications for existing approved or investigational drugs, leveraging known safety profiles, manufacturing processes, and clinical experience to accelerate development timelines. Repurposing may be driven by mechanistic insights, real-world evidence signals, or high-throughput screening of approved drug libraries against new disease targets. This approach can reduce development risk compared to entirely novel drug discovery.

The pharmaceutical industry and academic groups pursue repurposing particularly for rare diseases, emerging infections, and conditions with high unmet need where traditional development is costly or slow. Challenges include securing intellectual property protection, demonstrating efficacy in new populations, and establishing appropriate dosing regimens for different disease contexts. Regulatory pathways may allow streamlined development depending on existing data, though robust clinical evidence remains required for new indications. As data science and systems biology improve target mapping, drug repurposing continues expanding as a valuable strategy for delivering therapies faster and more efficiently.