Drug screening: Drug repositioning needs a rethink

Xianting Ding, Nature 535, 355 (21 July 2016) doi:10.1038/535355d  Published online 20 July 2016

Repurposing drugs to treat illnesses for which they were not originally intended can be faster and cheaper than developing new ones. Disease is often an integration of multiple pathologies, so these are potentially treatable with different drug combinations that act in synergy.

For commercial reasons, pharmaceutical firms tend to dismiss reposition testing of drugs that are off patent. I therefore suggest that governments step in to fund the repurposing of established drugs to broaden the search.

 Drug screening: Drug repositioning needs a rethink