Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry - Volume 16, Issue 19, 2016

Computational drug repositioning is popular in academia and pharmaceutical industry globally. The repositioning hypotheses, generated using a variety of computational methods, can be quickly tested experimentally. Several success stories have emerged in the past decade or so. Newer concepts and methods such as drug profile matching are being tried to address the limitations of current computational repositioning m Read More

Although bioactivation is a well-documented process and the role of active metabolites in the drug discovery field has long been recognized, drug metabolites are usually ignored in virtual screening campaigns oriented to drug repositioning. The present article discusses different issues related to overlooking of the active metabolites in virtual screening campaigns, including an overview of the essential aspects of drug biotransfo Read More

Have you a compound in your lab, which was not successful against the designed target, or a drug that is no more attractive? The drug repurposing represents the right way to reconsider them. It can be defined as the modern and rationale approach of the traditional methods adopted in drug discovery, based on the knowledge, insight and luck, alias known as serendipity. This repurposing approach can be applied both in silico Read More

As commented by the Nobelist James Black that “The most fruitful basis of the discovery of a new drug is to start with an old drug”, drug repurposing represents an attractive drug discovery strategy. Despite the success of several repurposed drugs on the market, the ultimate therapeutic potential of a large number of non-cancer drugs is hindered during their repositioning due to various issues including the lim Read More

The existence of unresponsive tumors and the appearance of resistant tumors during the course of treatments both justify that we increase urgently the panel of pharmacological molecules able to fight cancer. An interesting strategy is drug reprofiling (also known as drug repositioning, drug repurposing or drug retasking) that consists of identifying and developing new uses for existing drugs. This review illustrates drug r Read More

Development of new drugs is a time-consuming, hugely expensive and an uncertain endeavor. The pharmaceutical industry is looking for cost-effective alternatives with reduced risks of drug failure. Validated target machinery along with established inhibitors indicates usefulness in drug design, discovery and further development. Folate metabolism, found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, represents an essential drug Read More

Although tremendous effort has been made over the past century to treat cancer effectively, the pace of drug development is far behind the increasing rate of cancer incidence and mortality. There are two major hurdles in anticancer drug development: dose-limiting toxic side effects that reduce either drug effectiveness or the quality of life of patients and complicated drug development processes that are costly and time Read More

Increased investments and development of new technologies in drug discovery have barely improved the outcome of medicinal entities in the drug discovery market from a long time. Minimal success rates of drug approvals, poor safety profiles, and long development processes are some of many hurdles encountered in the drug discovery field. Therefore, drug repurposing can provide an alternative approach to meet the de Read More

Development of agents for cancer prevention has been particularly challenging for two main reasons. One is the inherent difficulty in identifying targets for the heterogeneous group of processes that lead to invasive cancer arising at different target organ sites, while the other is the need for safe, tolerable interventions that can be given for lengthy periods of time. The rapidly increasing understanding of the molecular pathog Read More

Due to the increasing costs and time consuming for new drug discovery, a large number of pharmaceutical firms have chosen to modify the existing drug molecules for repositioning candidates with new or improved properties, especially those with severe adverse effects, thereby accelerating the drug discovery process. Such strategy has witnessed its success with several examples reported. As the first identified Read More

Cardiometabolic disorder (CMD) is a cluster of diseases, including cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), metabolic syndrome (MS) and diabetes mellitus (DM). Cardiometabolic disorders (CMDs) remain the principal cause of death in both developed and developing countries, accounting for nearly 32% of all deaths worldwide per year. In addition, dyslipidemia, angina, arrhythmia, cardiac failure, myocardial infarction (MI), and diabe Read More

Neglected tropical diseases represent a major sanitary problem and a huge economic burden to endemic countries, and are currently expanding to non-endemic countries owing to migration currents. Though long abandoned in the past, recent research on novel therapeutics has already started to show results. Drug repositioning is one of the prominent, more successful strategies to approach the development of new treatments Read More

Autoimmune diseases are characterized by the production of autoantibodies directed against specific organs of own organism. Additional common traits of autoimmune diseases are chronic inflammation due to generation of inflammatory mediators, and disorders of redox processes. The pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases is still unknown. Treatment is based only on relieving the symptoms and improving the quality of Read More