The Future of Drug Repositioning: Old Drugs, New Opportunities

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes some of the novel methods used to accelerate the discovery of old drugs that could potentially treat new indications, either by the established mechanism of action or by the identification of new ones. Representative case studies of the approaches to therapeutic discoveries are also highlighted. Researchers have previously identified repositioned drugs by serendipity, novel insights, or target searching. The innovative strategies directed toward drug repositioning discussed in this chapter are phenotypic, high throughput, and in silico screening of commercial, public, and pharmaceutical compound libraries, the prospective mining of drug/activity databases, the exchange of compound information in collaborative networks, and data collection from the Internet and social networks. The term “drug repositioning” has been used interchangeably with “drug repurposing” or “drug reprofiling,” which is a promising field in drug discovery that identifies new therapeutic opportunities for existing drugs.