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Drug repositioning: Progress and challenges in drug discovery for various diseases
Open accessAbstract
Compared with traditional de novo drug discovery, drug repurposing has become an attractive drug discovery strategy due to its low-cost and high efficiency. Through a comprehensive analysis of the candidates that have been identified with drug repositioning potentials, it is found that although some drugs do not show obvious advantages in the original indications, they may exert more obvious effects in other diseases. In addition, some drugs have a synergistic effect to exert better clinical efficacy if used in combination. Particularly, it has been confirmed that drug repositioning has benefits and values on the current public health emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which proved the great potential of drug repositioning. In this review, we systematically reviewed a series of representative drugs that have been repositioned for different diseases and illustrated successful cases in each disease. Especially, the mechanism of action for the representative drugs in new indications were explicitly explored for each disease, we hope this review can provide important insights for follow-up research.
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“Yet, the conventional pathway for novel drug discovery, development, and regulatory approval can span approximately 15 years, rendering it inadequate to address the immediate and growing clinical demands posed by resistant Candida infections [14, 15].”
From Statins as Antifungal Agents: A Review on Drug Repurposing and Nanotechnology-Driven Delivery Strategies (2025) · cites this paper as [14]
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“Completing these stages can take approximately 12–17 years [14].”
From Statins as Antifungal Agents: A Review on Drug Repurposing and Nanotechnology-Driven Delivery Strategies (2025) · cites this paper as [14]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hua, Y., Dai, X., Xu, Y., Xing, G., Liu, H., Lu, T., Chen, Y., & Zhang, Y.
- Affiliations
- China Pharmaceutical University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Chen, Yadong
- Zhang, Yanmin
- Venue
- European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2022-04
- Volume
- 234
- Pages
- 114239
- ISSN
- 0223-5234 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8883737
- OpenAlex
- W4220885170
- Cited by
- 232
- References
- 249
- Citations by year
- 2026: 35 · 2025: 77 · 2024: 80 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 9
- FWCI
- 4.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Drug Discovery › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology (medical) › Historical Medical Research and Treatments
- Keywords
- drug repurposing, drug discovery, drug synergy, combination therapy, COVID-19 pandemic, mechanism of action
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19 Drug Treatment, Humans, Drug Discovery, Drug Repositioning, Pandemics
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