Repurposing of Antibiotics: Sense or Non-sense

Drug repurposing (also called drug repositioning, re-profiling or re-tasking) is a strategy for identifying new uses for approved or investigational drugs that are outside the scope of the original medical indication. It has gained a lot of attention in recent years. The number of research projects for utilising already available drugs against different diseases has gained momentum in current times. The development of a new drug demands exorbitant funds, human resources and unpredictable amount of time. Several studies have shown promising results of repurposed drugs for combating different diseases. Currently, the scientific journals have been flooded with the utility of repurposed drugs especially in the times of COVID-19 when the shortage of drugs threatened the whole world. Drug repurposing has been employed in order to speed up the traditional process of drug discovery by bypassing the need for toxicity testing for drugs that have already been proven to be safe and effective in humans and approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration, United States) for other indications.