Given the high attrition rates, substantial costs and slow pace of new drug discovery and development, repurposing of 'old' drugs to treat both common and rare diseases is increasingly becoming an attractive proposition because it involves the use of de-risked compounds, with potentially lower overall development costs and shorter development timelines. Various data-driven and experimental approaches have been suggested for the identification of repurposable drug candidates; however, there are also major technological and regulatory challenges that need to be addressed. In this Review, we present approaches used for drug repurposing (also known as drug repositioning), discuss the challenges faced by the repurposing community and recommend innovative ways by which these challenges could be addressed to help realize the full potential of drug repurposing.

鉴于新药发现和开发的高损耗率、巨大成本和缓慢的速度，重新利用“旧”药物来治疗常见和罕见疾病正日益成为一个有吸引力的提议，因为它涉及使用降低风险的化合物，可能降低总体开发成本并缩短开发时间。已经提出了各种数据驱动和实验方法来识别可重复利用的候选药物；但是，还需要解决重大的技术和监管挑战。在这篇综述中，我们介绍了用于药物再利用（也称为药物再定位）的方法，