Accelerating Drug Repurposing in the UK

WORKSHOP LEADER:

Dr Farhat Khanim

Drug repurposing, also known as drug redeployment, reprofiling or repositioning, is the use of existing drugs for a new indication.  This drug development pipeline has generated significant impact in the form of new therapies, especially in areas of unmet need e.g. rare diseases and diseases of low & middle-income countries (LMIC) that are generally low priority areas for the pharmaceutical industry. The vast majority of these studies are performed in academic laboratories. However, the rate at which the academic community are identifying repurposed drug combinations and delivering them to the clinic is significantly impaired by lack of expertise and/or reagents/equipment.  CADRe, the Centre for Accelerated Drug Redeployment, aims to provide a complete package of expertise and facilities to accelerate the drug repurposing pipeline delivering clinical impact both in high income countries and also in LMIC.