Abstract

Global efforts invested in the prevention and treatment of cancer need to be repositioned to develop safe, effective, and economic anticancer therapeutics by adopting rational approaches of drug discovery. Drug repurposing is one of the established approaches to reposition old, clinically approved off-patent noncancer drugs with known targets into newer indications. The literature review suggests a key role of drug repurposing in the development of drugs intended for cancer as well as noncancer therapeutics. A wide category of noncancer drugs such as, drugs acting on CNS, anthelmintics, cardiovascular drugs, antimalarial drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, have come out with interesting outcomes during preclinical and clinical phases. In the present article, a comprehensive overview of the current scenario of drug repurposing for the treatment of cancer has been focused. The details of some successful studies along with examples have been included followed by associated challenges.

Keywords: Anticancer drugs, multitargeting, Non-cancer drugs, drug repurposing, drug discovery, cancer therapeutics.