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There has always been a level of drug repurposing in the
life sciences industry, with companies reviewing their
portfolios to see which products could be used elsewhere,
bringing clear time and cost benefits. While traditional
drug development tends to take at least 10 years and
cost $1-2 billion, a repurposed drug can cut both of these
down significantly because preclinical and early phase
testing have already been completed to establish the
drug’s safety. The University of Cambridge has suggested
that repurposing success rates can range from 30% to
almost 70%, compared to the average success rate of
10% for new drug candidates.
However, there can be a surface-level misconception
about what drug repurposing means in practice. When
people think about drug repurposing, they might
think of treatments which have been reconstituted to
do something completely different. Viagra, originally
developed solely for the treatment of hypertension,
perhaps being the most famous. Or Botox, once created
to improve cross-eyedness, being another. In both
cases, the drug ended up being used for a very different
purpose than initially set out.
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