Drug repurposing for metabolic disorders: Scientific, technological and economic issues

Obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic disorders place a huge burden on both the physical health and financial well-being of the community. While the need for effective treatment of metabolic disorders remains urgent and the reality is that traditional drug development involves high costs and a very long time with many pre-clinical and clinical trials, the need for drug repurposing has emerged as a potential alternative. Scientific evidence has shown the anti-diabetic and anti-obesity effects of old drugs, which were initially utilized for the treatment of inflammation, depression, infections, and even cancers. The drug library used modern technological methods to conduct drug screening. Computational molecular docking, genome-wide association studies, or omics data mining are advantageous and unavoidable methods for drug repurposing. Drug repurposing offers a promising avenue for economic efficiency in healthcare, especially for less common metabolic diseases, despite the need for rigorous research and validation. In this chapter, we aim to explore the scientific, technological, and economic issues surrounding drug repurposing for metabolic disorders. We hope to shed light on the potential of this approach and the challenges that need to be addressed to make it a viable option in the treatment of metabolic disorders, especially in the future fight against metabolic disorders.