Background:
Due to higher failure rates, lengthy time and high cost of the traditional de novo drug discovery
and development process; the rate of opportunity to get new, safe and efficacious drugs for the targeted population
including pediatric patients with cancer becomes sluggish.
Objectives:
This paper discusses the development of novel anticancer drugs focusing on the identification and selection of
target anticancer drug development for the targeted population.
Methods:
Information presented in this review was obtained from different databases including PUBMED, SCOPUS,
Web of Science, and EMBASE. Various keywords were used as search terms.
Results:
The pharmaceutical companies currently are executing drug repurposing as an alternative means to accelerate
the drug development process that reduces the risk of failure, time and cost, which takes 3-12 years with almost 25%
overall probability of success as compared to de novo drug discovery and development process (10-17 years) which has
less than 10% probability of success. An alternative strategy to the traditional de novo drug discovery and development
process, called drug repurposing, is also presented.
Conclusion:
Therefore, to continue with the progress of developing novel anticancer drugs towards the targeted
population, identification and selection of the target to the specific disease type is important considering the aspects of the
age of the patient and the disease stages such as each cancer types are different when we consider the disease at a
molecular level. Drug repurposing technique becomes an influential alternative strategy to discover and develop novel
anticancer drug candidates.
