Abstract
Drug repositioning is a drug discovery strategy in which an existing drug is utilized as a therapeutic agent for a different disease. As information regarding the safety, pharmacokinetics, and formulation of existing drugs is already available, the cost and time required for drug development is reduced. Conventional drug repositioning has been dominated by a method involving the search for candidate drugs that act on the target molecules of an organism in a diseased state through basic research. However, recently, information hosted on medical information and life science databases have been used in translational research to bridge the gap between basic research in drug repositioning and clinical application. Here, we review an example of drug repositioning wherein candidate drugs were found and their mechanisms of action against a novel therapeutic target were identified via a basic research method that combines the findings retrieved from various medical and life science databases.
Highlights
Drug repositioning represents a strategy to discover novel pharmacological effects by using the existing approved drugs that have well-proven pharmacokinetics and safety in humans
Several studies have been reported on the use of medical information databases for drug repositioning
The results showed that exenatide, a glucagon-like peptide1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, significantly reduced the risk of rosiglitazone-induced myocardial infarction
Summary
Drug repositioning represents a strategy to discover novel pharmacological effects by using the existing approved drugs that have well-proven pharmacokinetics and safety in humans. JADER, Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database; FAERS, FDA Adverse Events Reporting System; JMDC Claims database, Japan Medical Data Center Claims database; NDB, the National database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan; GEO, Gene Expression Omnibus; LINCS, Library of Integrated Network-Based Cellular Signatures Data Portal. Research using such medical big data enables the analysis of patients with various backgrounds and in various regions, enabling the evaluation of efficacy and safety in actual clinical practice and facilitating the detection of adverse events that are not yet clear among a limited number of patients.
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