Welcome to Module 3: Finding a repurposing candidate
In the repurposing journey, finding and selecting the right candidate is crucial. This involves pinpointing drugs that, though originally designed for one condition, might possess hidden potential to address another. This process demands a combination of innovative thinking, scientific precision, and strategic analysis to determine which compounds could be successfully applied to new therapeutic uses.
Once your Target Product Profile (TPP) is developed and some clear aims and characteristics for your drug have been outlined, these can be used to search existing data and literature to find drugs that match what you’re looking for. When approaching these searches, a huge amount of information can be found, so it is important to have a clear and robust search strategy to keep a focus on the outcome: finding the repurposing candidate with the greatest chance of reaching patients in the clinic.
The learning objectives of this module are to:
- Learn how to identify drugs with the potential to be repurposed for new therapeutic uses
- Learn how to develop a robust search strategy
- Learn about some of the sources of existing data to support your search
- Begin to identify which search/screening methods might be most appropriate for your search
- Understand the next steps in validating your chosen repurposing candidate, considering beginning safety and efficacy studies to support this
Click on the topics in the panel on the right to navigate through the content. Do not forget to click ‘mark as complete’ at the bottom of each page to track your progress.
Good luck on your repurposing journey!
Acknowledgements
Primary author: Claudia Fuchs (EURORDIS)
Reviewers: Abby Stock-Duerdoth, Evelyn Hewitt, Johanna Huchting, Philip Gribbon and Richard Thompson
We’ve worked hard to bring this module to life, aiming to make it comprehensive and valuable for you. Because this is the very first launch of the Digital Academy, we really need your feedback. Please take a moment to complete our 3-minute feedback form at the end—we’d love to hear your thoughts!
