Repurposing strategies for tropical disease drug discovery

Abstract

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and other diseases of the developing world, such as malaria, attract research investments that are disproportionately low compared to their impact on human health worldwide. Therefore, pragmatic methods for launching new drug discovery programs have emerged that repurpose existing chemical matter as new drugs or new starting points for optimization. In this Digest we describe applications of different repurposing approaches for NTDs, and provide a means by which these approaches may be differentiated from each other. These include drug repurposing, target repurposing, target class repurposing, and lead repurposing.

Keywords: Drug repositioning; Drug repurposing; Lead repurposing; Neglected tropical disease; Piggy-back drug discovery; Target class repurposing; Target repurposing; Tropical disease.