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Recycled Translation: Repurposing Drugs for Stroke
Samantha E Spellicy1, David C Hess2
1M.D./Ph.D. Program, Office of Academic Affairs, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA. sspellicy@augusta.edu.
Translational Stroke Research
|February 26, 2022
Summary
Repurposing existing drugs offers a promising avenue for stroke treatment, overcoming limitations of new drug development. This strategy leverages FDA-approved medications for faster, safer, and more cost-effective stroke therapies.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Pharmacology
- Translational Medicine
Background:
- Stroke remains a leading global cause of death and disability.
- Current stroke treatment options are limited, with only one FDA-approved medication (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator).
- Drug repurposing presents a viable alternative to de novo drug development for stroke therapeutics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the potential of repurposing FDA-approved drugs for stroke treatment.
- To analyze the advantages of drug repurposing, including safety, approval rates, and cost-effectiveness.
- To identify and categorize current mechanistic approaches for repurposed stroke therapeutics.
Main Methods:
- Review of active stroke clinical trials utilizing repurposed therapeutics.
- Categorization of repurposed drugs based on their proposed mechanisms of action (e.g., anticoagulation, immune regulation, neuroprotection).
- Discussion of computational approaches for identifying novel therapeutic avenues.
Main Results:
- 37 active stroke clinical trials are investigating repurposed therapeutics.
- Repurposed drugs are classified into six mechanistic categories.
- Drug repurposing offers significant patient-centered and economic benefits compared to developing new drugs.
Conclusions:
- Drug repurposing is a strategic approach to accelerate stroke therapeutic translation.
- Further research and computational analysis are needed to optimize mechanistic categories.
- Regulatory frameworks may require adaptation to incentivize innovation in drug repurposing for stroke.
