by Kaiser M, Mäser P, Tadoori LP, Ioset JR, Brun R. PLOS ONE, 2015, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0135556
Summary: Only a few drugs are available to treat diseases such as leishmaniasis, Chagas’ disease, human African trypanosomiasis and malaria. Since drug development is lengthy and expensive, a drug repurposing strategy offers an attractive fast-track approach to speed up the process. A set of 100 registered drugs with drug repositioning potential for neglected diseases was assembled and tested in vitro by DNDi and SwissTPH against the four protozoan parasites associated with the aforementioned diseases, and several drugs and drug classes showed activity. The results are critically reviewed and discussed in the context of a drug repositioning strategy where R&D has to be addressed with limited resources.
