New opportunity for Chinese pharmaceutical R & D: systematic drug repurposing based on big data
Ke Wang · Chinese Science Bulletin · 2014
Improvement in the cost-efficiency of drug development to provide people with safe, effective, and affordable medicines is of particular importance in China. Novel drug discovery is associated with high cost and risk. In contrast, identification of a novel indication for an established drug(i.e., drug repositioning or repurposing) has become a widely implemented strategy in the pharmaceutical industry because of its lower risk, decreased cost, and shorter development period. Along with the development of translational bioinformatics and biomedical big data technologies, drug repurposing is evolving from empirical research that relies on clinical observation to systematic research that is based on large-scale data analysis. In this article, we introduce a series of newly established methods of big data oriented drug repurposing with a particular focus on the details of chemical-protein interactomes, side effects, gene-expression connectivity mapping, and genome-wide association studies. Taking these cutting-edge achievements as references and examples, Chinese scientists can better develop and improve drug repurposing techniques that meet the specific needs of China, thus leading to great socioeconomic benefits.