Drug Repurposing in the Treatment of COVID-19

The use of drugs that have been previously defined for certain indications in new indications is defined as the repurposing/repositioning of the drug. The requirement of all clinical research steps that starts from healthy volunteers, due to the slowness of new drug discovery, longer time to reach the market, and high cost to develop a new drug, make drug repurposing an attractive pharmacoeconomic solution. Repositioning of drugs becomes even more important, especially in situations where time is vital and emergency in drug development such as pandemics. In this review, we have both summarized the techniques used for drug repositioning and evaluated drugs that have been repositioned in Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) treatment based on three main strategies, target-disease and drug-based. Considering the availability of the results of pharmacovigilance studies and long-term toxic effects of old drugs provide an important advantage compared to traditional drug discovery in COVID-19 treatment, where sepsis and multi-organ dysfunction can occur.