Abstract: It is essential to acknowledge the efforts made thus far to manage or eliminate various disease burden faced by humankind. However, the rising global trends of the so-called incurable diseases continue to put pressure on Pharma industries and other drug discovery platforms. In the past, drugs with more than one target were deemed as undesirable options with interest being on the one-drug-single target. Despite the successes of the single-target drugs, it is currently beyond doubt that these drugs have limited efficacy against complex diseases in which the pathogenesis is dependent on a set of biochemical events and several bioreceptors operating concomitantly. Different approaches have thus been proposed to come up with effective drugs to combat even the complex diseases. In the past, the focus was on producing drugs from screening plant compounds; today, we talk about combination therapy and multi-targeting drugs. The multi-target drugs have recently attracted much attention as promising tools to fight against most challenging diseases, and thus a new research focus area. This review will discuss the potential impact of multi-target drug approach on various complex diseases with focus on malaria, tuberculosis (TB), diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases as the main representatives of multifactorial diseases. We will also discuss alternative ideas to solve the current problems bearing in mind the fourth industrial revolution on drug discovery.

Keywords: multi-target drugs, malaria, diabetes, tuberculosis and drug discovery


中文翻译：

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多靶点药物治疗某些复杂疾病的潜在影响。

摘要：必须承认迄今为止为管理或消除人类所面临的各种疾病负担而作出的努力。然而，所谓的不治之症的全球上升趋势继续对制药业和其他药物发现平台造成压力。过去，具有多个目标的药物被认为是不受欢迎的选择，而人们关注的是一个单一药物的目标。尽管单靶标药物取得了成功，但目前毫无疑问的是，这些药物对复杂疾病的疗效有限，在复杂疾病中，发病机理取决于一系列生化事件和几种生物受体。因此，已经提出了不同的方法来提出有效的药物来对抗甚至复杂的疾病。在过去，重点是通过筛选植物化合物生产药物；今天，我们谈论联合疗法和多靶点药物。近来，多靶点药物作为与最具挑战性的疾病作斗争的有前途的工具受到了广泛的关注，因此成为一个新的研究重点领域。这篇综述将讨论多靶点药物治疗方法对各种复杂疾病的潜在影响，其中以疟疾，结核病，糖尿病和神经退行性疾病为重点，作为多因素疾病的主要代表。考虑到第四次药物发现工业革命，我们还将讨论解决当前问题的替代方案。近来，多靶点药物作为与最具挑战性的疾病作斗争的有前途的工具受到了广泛的关注，因此成为了新的研究重点领域。这篇综述将讨论多靶点药物治疗方法对各种复杂疾病的潜在影响，其中以疟疾，结核病，糖尿病和神经退行性疾病为重点，作为多因素疾病的主要代表。考虑到第四次药物发现工业革命，我们还将讨论解决当前问题的替代方案。近来，多靶点药物作为与最具挑战性的疾病作斗争的有前途的工具受到了广泛的关注，因此成为了新的研究重点领域。这篇综述将讨论多靶点药物治疗方法对各种复杂疾病的潜在影响，其中以疟疾，结核病，糖尿病和神经退行性疾病为重点，作为多因素疾病的主要代表。考虑到第四次药物发现工业革命，我们还将讨论解决当前问题的替代方案。

关键词：多靶点药物疟疾糖尿病结核病和药物发现