Medication Repurposing in Pediatric Patients: Teaching Old Drugs New Tricks

Active Extraction of Experience of Adverse Drug Reactions in Children

OBJECTIVE

Safety information regarding the use of medication, over-the-counter drugs, and supplements for Japanese children is scarce. The aim of this study was to clarify adverse drug reaction (ADR) experiences in children and consider the method to collect ADRs efficiently.

METHODS

We conducted a questionnaire survey regarding the ADR experiences of 20,412 children who were attending a preschool or kindergarten in the cities of Warabi and Toda, Saitama Prefecture, in May 2013.

RESULTS

Responses were received from the guardians of 15,076 children (49.5% girls; 8.2 ± 3.5 yr). A total of 196 guardians (1.3%) responded that their children had experienced ADRs. Among them, a total of 243 suspected drugs and 284 ADRs were reported. Of the 243 suspected drugs, 2.5% were associated with a vaccine. The most frequently reported medication, reaction, and "medication-reaction pair" were antibacterials for systemic use, rash, and "antibacterials for systemic use and rash," respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, we clarified that there were many potential ADRs among children, but all "medication-reaction pairs" reported were consistent with adverse events reported in the clinical trials available in the prescribing information of each medication. This study provides data respective to the frequency of these adverse events in the general pediatric population. Additional education is needed to enlighten guardians of the importance to report ADRs through the Direct Patient Reporting System.

Brief Overview of Approaches and Challenges in New Antibiotic Development: A Focus On Drug Repurposing

Drug repurposing, or identifying new uses for existing drugs, has emerged as an alternative to traditional drug discovery processes involving de novo synthesis. Drugs that are currently approved or under development for non-antibiotic indications may possess antibiotic properties, and therefore may have repurposing potential, either alone or in combination with an antibiotic. They might also serve as "antibiotic adjuvants" to enhance the activity of certain antibiotics.

Harnessing Drug Repurposing for Exploration of New Diseases: An Insight to Strategies and Case Studies

BACKGROUND

Traditional drug discovery is time consuming, costly, and risky process. Owing to the large investment, excessive attrition, and declined output, drug repurposing has become a blooming approach for the identification and development of new therapeutics. The method has gained momentum in the past few years and has resulted in many excellent discoveries. Industries are resurrecting the failed and shelved drugs to save time and cost. The process accounts for approximately 30% of the new US Food and Drug Administration approved drugs and vaccines in recent years.

METHODS

A systematic literature search using appropriate keywords were made to identify articles discussing the different strategies being adopted for repurposing and various drugs that have been/are being repurposed.

RESULTS

This review aims to describe the comprehensive data about the various strategies (Blinded search, computational approaches, and experimental approaches) used for the repurposing along with success case studies (treatment for orphan diseases, neglected tropical disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and drugs for pediatric population). It also inculcates an elaborated list of more than 100 drugs that have been repositioned, approaches adopted, and their present clinical status. We have also attempted to incorporate the different databases used for computational repurposing.

CONCLUSION

The data presented is proof that drug repurposing is a prolific approach circumventing the issues poised by conventional drug discovery approaches. It is a highly promising approach and when combined with sophisticated computational tools, it also carries high precision. The review would help researches in prioritizing the drugrepositioning method much needed to flourish the drug discovery research.

On-Label or Off-Label? Overcoming Regulatory and Financial Barriers to Bring Repurposed Medicines to Cancer Patients

Repurposing of medicines has gained a lot of interest from the research community in recent years as it could offer safe, timely, and affordable new treatment options for cancer patients with high unmet needs. Increasingly, questions arise on how new uses will be translated into clinical practice, especially in case of marketed medicinal products that are out of basic patent or regulatory protection. The aim of this study was to portray the regulatory framework relevant for making repurposed medicines available to cancer patients in Europe and propose specific policy recommendations to address the current regulatory and financial barriers. We outlined two routes relevant to the clinical adoption of a repurposed medicine. First, a new indication can be approved, and thus brought on-label, via the marketing authorization procedures established in European and national legislation. Such procedures initiate a detailed and independent assessment of the quality and the benefit-risk balance of a medicinal product in a specific indication, benefiting both prescribers and patients as it reassures them that the scientific evidence is robust. However, the process of marketing authorization for new therapeutic indications entails a high administrative burden and significant costs while the return-on-investment for the pharmaceutical industry is expected to be low or absent for medicines that are out of basic patent and regulatory protection. Moreover, most of the repurposing research is conducted by independent or academic researchers who do not have the expertise or resources to get involved in regulatory procedures. A second option is to prescribe a medicine off-label for the new indication, which is managed at the national level in Europe. While off-label use could provide timely access to treatments for patients with urgent medical needs, it also entails important safety, liability and financial risks for patients, physicians, and society at large. In view of that, we recommend finding solutions to facilitate bringing new uses on-label, for example by developing a collaborative framework between not-for-profit and academic organizations, pharmaceutical industry, health technology assessment bodies, payers, and regulators.

Repurposing available drugs for neurodevelopmental disorders: The fragile X experience

Many available drugs have been repurposed as treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders. In the specific case of fragile X syndrome, many clinical trials of available drugs have been conducted with the goal of disease modification. In some cases, detailed understanding of basic disease mechanisms has guided the choice of drugs for clinical trials, and several notable successes in fragile X clinical trials have led to common use of drugs such as minocycline in routine medical practice. Newer technologies like Disease-Gene Expression Matching (DGEM) may allow for more rapid identification of promising repurposing candidates. A DGEM study predicted that sulindac could be therapeutic for fragile X, and subsequent preclinical validation studies have shown promising results. The use of combinations of available drugs and nutraceuticals has the potential to greatly expand the options for repurposing, and may even be a viable business strategy. This article is part of the Special Issue entitled 'Drug Repurposing: old molecules, new ways to fast track drug discovery and development for CNS disorders'.

Targeted Therapies: Immunologic Effects and Potential Applications Outside of Cancer

Two pharmacologic approaches that are currently at the forefront of treating advanced cancer are those that center on disrupting critical growth/survival signaling pathways within tumor cells (commonly referred to as "targeted therapies") and those that center on enhancing the capacity of a patient's immune system to mount an antitumor response (immunotherapy). Maximizing responses to both of these approaches requires an understanding of the oncogenic events present in a given patient's tumor and the nature of the tumor-immune microenvironment. Although these 2 modalities were developed and initially used independently, combination regimens are now being tested in clinical trials, underscoring the need to understand how targeted therapies influence immunologic events. Translational studies and preclinical models have demonstrated that targeted therapies can influence immune cell trafficking, the production of and response to chemokines and cytokines, antigen presentation, and other processes relevant to antitumor immunity and immune homeostasis. Moreover, because these and other effects of targeted therapies occur in nonmalignant cells, targeted therapies are being evaluated for use in applications outside of oncology.