Using existing medicines to develop new therapies for patients with unmet treatment needs. This is known as drug repurposing. This way of making new and affordable treatments available has huge treatment potential for a variety of conditions, as the development track can be relatively shorter and cheaper in comparison with traditional innovative drugs.
Modern technology enables rapid screening for possible new applications. Nevertheless, it turns out that the drug repurposing route to the patient still contains many bottlenecks. A proper business model is often lacking, and limited regulatory options often slow down the route from initial discovery to continued availability for patients. The limited successful examples of drug repurposing show both the enormous untapped potential as well as the lack of a regular development route.
RARE-NL
RARE-NL is a national collaboration hub in the Netherlands for the development of drugs for rare diseases and drug repurposing. RARE-NL aims to bring expertise together. By pooling efforts, they aim to accelerate progress and improve outcomes for people affected by rare diseases. Embracing a ‘case to system’ approach, RARE-NL connects expertise, fosters collaboration and translates insights from individual cases into systemic solutions for the availability of rare disease therapies and drug repurposing.
Podcast(s)
- Listen to the FAST podcast (in Dutch): if you would like to know more about the (challenges of) drug repurposing
Useful initiatives
- REMIDI4ALL: The European platform for medicines repurposing.
- REMIDI4ALL funding calls database: contains a list of current funding calls related to drug repurposing.
- REMIDI4ALL Digital Academy: the digital academy for medicines repurposing
- REMIDI4ALL Learning Resources Database: resources for training and learning in drug repurposing
- RePo4EU: Platform for Mechanism-Based Drug Repurposing
Useful links
Drug repurposing has its specific challenge. There is already a lot of information available to guide you. You can check-out the following sites:
- Roadmap tool: Repurposing Of All Drugs, Mapping All Paths (ROADMAP) is a resource that provides guidance for rare disease organizations seeking to pursue drug repurposing, based on real world experiences.
- FAST Position paper: Drug repurposing as a fast track to affordable new therapies