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Looking for Driver Pathways of Acquired Resistance to Targeted Therapy: Drug Resistant Subclone Generation and Sensitivity Restoring by Gene Knock-down
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Developing Novel Anticancer Drugs for Targeted Populations: An Update

Tadesse B Tafesse1, Mohammed H Bule1, Fazlullah Khan2

  • 1Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy, Drug Design and Development Research Center and The Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Current Pharmaceutical Design
|November 25, 2020
PubMed
Abstract

Insights

Drug repurposing accelerates the development of novel anticancer drugs, offering a faster and more cost-effective alternative to traditional de novo discovery. This strategy enhances the success rate for targeted cancer therapies.

Area of Science:

  • Oncology
  • Pharmacology
  • Drug Development

Background:

  • Traditional de novo drug discovery is lengthy, costly, and has high failure rates, slowing the delivery of new cancer drugs.
  • Pediatric cancer patients face particular challenges in accessing novel, safe, and effective treatments.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the development of novel anticancer drugs.
  • To focus on identifying and selecting targeted drug development strategies for specific patient populations.

Main Methods:

  • A comprehensive literature review was conducted.
  • Databases searched included PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and EMBASE using various keywords.

Main Results:

  • Drug repurposing is an alternative strategy that significantly reduces development time (3-12 years) and cost compared to de novo discovery (10-17 years).
  • Drug repurposing offers a higher probability of success (approx. 25%) compared to de novo discovery (less than 10%).

Conclusions:

  • Identifying and selecting specific molecular targets is crucial for advancing novel anticancer drug development.
  • Drug repurposing is an influential strategy for discovering and developing new anticancer drug candidates, considering patient age and disease stage.
Keywords:
Anticancer drugscancerdrug developmentdrug discoverydrug repurposingplerixafortargeted populationthalidomide

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