Drug Repositioning in the Postgenomic Era 2013

The premise of drug repositioning functions in terms of the methodologies implemented in the quest of discovering new indications for existing drugs. With the consistent decline in drug production over the past years, pharmaceutical companies strive to find alternative means to manufacture and market therapeutic drugs at lightening speeds. In an attempt to negate high manufacturing costs and lengthy timelines, researchers and clinicians look to repositioning as a means of recreating new drugs from older ones with novel functionalities and better efficacy. Successfully repositioned drugs such as Viagra have hit the market with exponential pharmaceutical revenue records made at a fraction of the cost versus de novo methodologies paving the way for drug prospects that follow in similar footsteps. In today's day and age, drug repositioning is quickly making its way to mainstream use worldwide. Technologically, pharmaceutical companies have utilized such mechanisms to explore and implement the quick turn over of drug manufacturing via the novel technologies associated with drug repositioning. This short course will update our knowledge and recent progress in drug repositioning and discuss the future directions of this important approach for drug discovery. Upon completion of the short course participants should be able to 1) describe systemic approaches of
drug repositioning in the nowadays, 2) discuss how drug repositioning accelerates drug discovery using representative cases, and 3) list limitations of drug repositioning and the possible ways to overcome them.