Drug “repurposing” or “reprofiling” is not new: Pharmaceutical companies have been seeking new uses of old drugs to extend patent protections and whenever new, off-label uses of the drugs are found. But reprofiling to deliberately develop emergency drugs is a new concept, made possible by advances in chemoinformatics, a new field that merges chemistry with computer science, according to Artem Cherkasov and colleagues.

“In the case of new infectious threats, there might be no time to develop a completely new drug ‘from the ground up,’ as the corresponding toxicological studies and regulatory investigations will take years to complete properly,” Cherkasov said. “Finding an already existing, well-studied therapeutic agent that will kill an emerging bug might provide a rapid, ‘first line of defense’ response option.” -American Chemical Society