Drug Repurposing in Inflammatory Disorders

Drug repurposing or drug repositioning is the process of identifying and developing new therapeutic applications for drugs previously indicated for some other medical conditions. It is essential because it may significantly save the time, expense, and risk involved in creating new medications from scratch while offering new therapeutic alternatives to patients with unmet medical requirements. Drug repurposing offers several compelling advantages in the field of pharmaceutical development, such as cost-effectiveness, enhanced patient outcomes, and faster development timelines. This streamlines the development process and addresses unmet medical needs by providing new therapeutic options for conditions with limited treatments. Ultimately, this contributes to improved patient outcomes and well-being. Inflammation is desirable because it is an ordinary part of the body’s defense against damage or infection and is involved in the pathophysiology of almost all diseases. But inflammation can turn into the dark side of the sword when it affects healthy tissues or extends to the body as a whole for a long time, referred to as chronic inflammation. Even though there are various treatments for inflammatory illnesses, several unmet needs still need to be mitigated. Some individuals struggle to respond well to current medications, which may be challenging to treat. Therapies with fewer adverse effects than considerable negative effects of many of the available therapies for inflammatory illnesses can restrict their use. Drugs such as pirfenidone, an anti-pulmonary fibrosis drug, have been repurposed for rheumatoid arthritis. Propantheline originally indicated for peptic ulcer has been repurposed for inflammatory bowel disease. Rifampicin, an antitubercular drug, has been repurposed for atopic dermatitis. Drug repurposing has provided promising results in therapeutics, and further scientific exploration is being done to establish it as a stable therapeutic management strategy for the same drug.