Drug Repositioning

Question 1

What is drug repositioning?

Answer 1

Drug repositioning is the process by which drugs originally designed for one condition are discovered to treat another and are then marketed for this new indication.

Question 2

Give an example of a drug that has been subject to the process of drug repositioning.

Answer 2

An example of this is viagra; it was originally designed for use in hypertension and angina pectoris however phase one trials indicated poor efficacy in angina and effectiveness for inducing erections.

Question 3

How can a drug be recognised as a viable candidate for drug repositioning?

Answer 3

• Off-target activities (Pharmacovigilance).
• Phenotypic screening.
• Chance.
• Random screening.
• Virtual screening.