Pharmacodynamics and Systems Pharmacology Approaches to Repurposing Drugs in the Wake of Global Health Burden

• Published in: Journal of pharmaceutical sciences 2016-10, Vol.105 (10), p.3007-3012
• Main Author: Bai, Jane P.F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: big data; Clinical Trials as Topic - economics; Clinical Trials as Topic - methods; Cost of Illness; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Drug Approval - economics; Drug Approval - methods; Drug Repositioning - economics; Drug Repositioning - methods; Drug Repositioning - trends; Global Health; Global Health - economics; Global Health - trends; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola - drug therapy; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola - economics; Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola - epidemiology; Humans; Pharmaceutical Preparations - administration & dosage; Pharmaceutical Preparations - economics; pharmacodynamics; systems pharmacology; Zika Virus Infection - drug therapy; Zika Virus Infection - economics; Zika Virus Infection - epidemiology
• ISSN: 0022-3549; 1520-6017
• DOI: 10.1016/j.xphs.2016.07.004

There are emergent needs for cost-effective treatment worldwide, for which repurposing to develop a drug with existing marketing approval of disease(s) for new disease(s) is a valid option. Although strategic mining of electronic health records has produced real-world evidences to inform drug repurposing, using omics data (drug and disease), knowledge base of protein interactions, and database of transcription factors have been explored. Structured integration of all the existing data under the framework of drug repurposing will facilitate decision making. The ability to foresee the need to integrate new data types produced by emergent technologies and to enable data connectivity in the context of human biology and targeted diseases, as well as to use the existing crucial quality data of all approved drugs will catapult the number of drugs being successfully repurposed. However, translational pharmacodynamics databases for modeling information across human biology in the context of host factors are lacking and are critically needed for drug repurposing to improve global public health, especially for the efforts to combat neglected tropic diseases as well as emergent infectious diseases such as Zika or Ebola virus.