Advances in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety

Abstract

Drug Repositioning: A Faster Path to Drug Discovery

Vishwani Persaud-Sharma and Shu-Feng Zhou

With the consistent decline in drug production over the past years, pharmaceutical companies strive to find alternative means to manufacture and market therapeutic drugs at lightening speeds. In an attempt to negate high manufacturing costs and lengthy timelines, researchers and clinicians look to repositioning as a means of recreating new drugs from older ones with novel functionalities and better efficacy. Successfully repositioned drugs such as Viagra have hit the market with exponential pharmaceutical revenue records made at a fraction of the cost versus de novo methodologies paving the way for drug prospects that follow in similar footsteps.