We’ve talked often about how drug repurposing (also called repositioning) can accelerate a therapeutic for Parkinson’s through the development pipeline. A drug already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for one indication may have beneficial effects for those with another disease; researchers are evaluating diabetes and hypertension drugs for their impact on Parkinson’s disease.
Since they’re already available and well characterized, repurposed drugs progress more quickly through the lengthy drug development, testing and approval processes and therefore are attractive to patients and disease foundations.
However, the lack of commercial incentive for drug repurposing makes the practice less attractive to industry funders.
With this in mind, this week the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and The Michael J. Fox Foundation published an article in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology outlining how philanthropy, industry and government organizations can advance repurposing of FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
The proposed ideas include:
- increasing targeted funding from government and foundations,
- building innovative public-private partnerships,
- instituting changes in patent law related to repurposed drugs with new indications,
- addressing roadblocks in the FDA review and approval process,
- and creating innovative royalty structures to provide financial incentives to justify the cost of testing old drugs for new diseases.
Read more repurposing news from the Foundation.
