Abstract
Drug repurposing is a more inexpensive and shorter approach than the traditional drug discovery and development process. The concept of identifying a potent molecule from a library of pre-existing molecules or an already approved drug has become a go-to tactic to accelerate the identification of drugs that can prevent COVID-19. This seemingly uncontrollable disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2. It is a novel virus of the Betacoronavirus genus, exhibiting similarities to the previously reported SAR-CoV genome structure and viral pathogenesis. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the rapid outbreak of COVID-19 have resulted in a global pandemic. Researchers are hard-pressed to develop new drugs for total containment of the disease, thus making the cost-effective drug repurposing a much more feasible approach. Therefore, the current review attempts to collate both the experimental and computational drug repurposing strategies that have been utilized against significant drug targets of SARS-CoV-2. Along with the strategies, the available druggable targets shall also be discussed. However, the occurrence of frequent recombination of the viral genome and time-bound primary analysis, resulting in insignificant data, are two major challenges that drug repurposing still faces.
Highlights
Drug repurposing is a process to identify new roles for existing drugs and is generally considered an efficient and economical approach [1]
This review focuses primarily on the target-oriented methodology of drug repurposing strategies against COVID-19
A multinational cohort study supported by Gilead Sciences showed clinical improvement for 68% of severe COVID-19 patients treated with compassionate use of remdesivir [79]
Summary
Drug repurposing is a process to identify new roles for existing drugs and is generally considered an efficient and economical approach [1]. Repurposing— known as reprofiling, re-tasking, repositioning, and rescue of drugs—can help identify new therapies for diseases, at a lower cost and in a shorter time, in those cases where preclinical safety studies have already been conducted It can play a crucial role in “therapeutic stratification procedures” for patients with rare, complex, or chronic diseases with few to no treatment procedures. The advent of genetic programming and computational approaches has led to the development of novel strategies for drug-repurposing. It is a convenient alternative when an unexpected medical scenario, such as the coronavirus disease 2019. March 2020, presents itself and the need for new drugs becomes inevitable [2,3].
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