Drug Repurposing: Expanding Therapeutic Potential of Existing Drugs

Drug repurposing is a strategy that involves finding new uses for existing drugs, offering a faster, cheaper, and less risky alternative to traditional drug development. This review discusses various strategies for drug repurposing, including drug-centric, target-centric, and computational approaches, and highlights its application in treating conditions like cancer, cardiovascular, neurological, infectious, and metabolic diseases. Successful examples include sildenafil and minoxidil. The review also addresses the challenges of regulatory and patent issues, concluding that drug repurposing is a valuable method for accelerating drug development and meeting unmet medical needs.