The importance of drug repurposing in the field of antiepileptic drug development

Abstract

Drug repurposing involves finding new therapeutic uses for existing drugs, including marketed, discontinued, shelved, and investigational drugs. The advantages of this strategy are many: reduced drug development timeline, best chances of surviving Phase II and Phase III clinical trials, simplified dosage form development, and, of course, added value to drugs belonging to a company or laboratory portfolio. The relatively high number of antiepileptic drugs which have been successfully repurposed and the fact that many drugs from other categories have proven anticonvulsant effects at the preclinical and even clinical level suggest that this strategy should be widely exploited in the antiepileptic drug discovery field. Here, we present an overview of the current approaches to drug repurposing, along with practical considerations to face a drug repurposing campaign to find new treatments for epilepsy and novel therapeutic uses for antiepileptic drugs.