drug repurposing

Definition

Drug repurposing, also known as drug repositioning, is the strategy of identifying new therapeutic applications for existing approved drugs outside their original medical indication. This approach leverages established safety profiles, pharmacokinetic data, and manufacturing processes to accelerate drug development timelines and reduce costs compared to de novo drug discovery. Drug repurposing relies on understanding shared molecular mechanisms, overlapping disease pathways, or common drug-target interactions across different conditions. By analyzing existing drugs through computational approaches, phenotypic screening, or network-based methods, researchers can identify candidates that may modulate disease-relevant pathways in unexpected contexts, potentially bringing treatments to patients years faster than traditional development.

Visualize drug repurposing in Nodes Bio

Researchers can use Nodes Bio to map drug-target-disease networks, revealing hidden connections between approved drugs and novel disease pathways. By visualizing protein-protein interactions, gene regulatory networks, and pathway overlaps between different diseases, users can identify repurposing candidates based on shared molecular signatures. Network proximity analysis helps prioritize drugs whose targets cluster near disease-associated genes, accelerating hypothesis generation for clinical repurposing studies.

Example Use Case

A research team investigating rare neurodegenerative diseases uses network analysis to identify repurposing candidates. They construct a network connecting disease-associated genes, their protein products, and known drug targets. The visualization reveals that metformin, a diabetes drug, targets proteins closely connected to autophagy pathways implicated in their disease of interest. This network proximity insight, combined with literature evidence of metformin's neuroprotective effects, leads them to propose a clinical trial testing metformin in patients with this rare condition.