Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed important biological insights into complex diseases, which are broadly expected to lead to the identification of new drug targets and opportunities for treatment. Drug development, however, remains hampered by the time taken and costs expended to achieve regulatory approval, leading many clinicians and researchers to consider alternative paths to more immediate clinical outcomes. In this Review, we explore approaches that leverage common variant genetics to identify opportunities for repurposing existing drugs, also known as drug repositioning. These approaches include the identification of compounds by linking individual loci to genes and pathways that can be pharmacologically modulated, transcriptome-wide association studies, gene-set association, causal inference by Mendelian randomization, and polygenic scoring.

全基因组关联研究 (GWAS) 揭示了对复杂疾病的重要生物学见解，人们普遍预计这将导致识别新的药物靶点和治疗机会。然而，药物开发仍然受到获得监管批准所花费的时间和花费的成本的阻碍，导致许多临床医生和研究人员考虑其他途径以获得更直接的临床结果。在这篇综述中，我们探索了利用常见变异遗传学来确定重新利用现有药物（也称为药物重新定位）的机会的方法。这些方法包括通过将单个位点与可药理学调节的基因和途径联系起来来鉴定化合物、转录组范围的关联研究、基因组关联、孟德尔随机化的因果推断、