Drug repositioning: playing dirty to kill pain

Area of Science:

• Pharmacology and Drug Development
• Pain Research
• Drug Repositioning

Background:

• The pharmaceutical industry faces an innovation gap, with decreasing new molecular entity approvals despite rising R&D investment.
• Developing new drugs de novo is time-consuming, costly, and risky, highlighting the need for alternative strategies.
• Pain relief is a significant unmet global clinical need, driving the demand for improved analgesics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically evaluate the utility of drug repositioning for developing new analgesic medications.
• To showcase examples of existing drugs being repurposed for pain relief.
• To advocate for increased utilization of drug repositioning in pain research.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on drug repositioning and analgesic development.
• Analysis of phenotypic screening versus target-based screening in drug discovery.
• Case studies of 'old' drugs with repositioned analgesic potential.

Main Results:

• Drug repositioning is an effective strategy to address the innovation gap in analgesic drug development.
• Phenotypic screening has historically been more successful than target-based screening for drug discovery.
• Several existing drugs have demonstrated efficacy or are under investigation for analgesic properties through repositioning.

Conclusions:

• Drug repositioning presents a viable and powerful tool to overcome challenges in developing novel analgesics.
• Encouraging drug repositioning can accelerate the translation of basic research into effective pain relief solutions.
• Repurposing existing drugs offers a more efficient, cost-effective, and less risky pathway to new pain treatments.