Drug Repurposing in Antiviral Research: A Current Scenario

Abstract

: Better understand the unexplored parts of the drugs you know than the drugs unidentified. Drug repurposing is a promising, fast and cost-effective method that can overcome traditional de novo drug discovery and development challenges of targeting various diseases and disorders. Drug repurposing, the process of identifying new uses for the existing or candidate drugs is an effective strategy for drug discovery in various diseases. Identifying new drugs and new target is significant in today’s world with a new disease emerging every day. With increase in number of the emerging viral infections day by day, the targeted therapies for those are not discovered in parallel. The drug repurposing approach has given many promising drug candidates for various viral infectious diseases like Ebola, ZIKA, dengue, influenza, HIV, HSV, CMV infections and various other infectious diseases. The emergence of resistance to existing antiviral drugs and re-emerging viral infections are the biggest challenges in the antiviral drug discovery. The drug repurposing approach is an assuring strategy in finding new potential antiviral agents within a short span of time to overcome the challenges in antiviral therapy. In this review, we describe the most promising results of the drug repurposing approach in the treatment of various infectious diseases.Key words: Antiviral, Drug resistance, Re-emerging viral infections, Repurposing.