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Drug repurposing is a safe and successful pathway to speed up the novel drug discovery
and development processes compared with de novo drug discovery approaches. Drug
repurposing uses FDA-approved drugs and drugs that failed in clinical trials, which have detailed
information on potential toxicity, formulation, and pharmacology. Technical advancements
in the informatics, genomics, and biological sciences account for the major success of
drug repurposing in identifying secondary indications of existing drugs. Drug repurposing is
playing a vital role in filling the gap in the discovery of potential antibiotics. Bacterial infections
emerged as an ever-increasing global public health threat by dint of multidrug resistance
to existing drugs. This raises the urgent need of development of new antibiotics that can effectively
fight multidrug-resistant bacterial infections (MDRBIs). The present review describes
the key role of drug repurposing in the development of antibiotics during 2016–2017 and of
the details of recently FDA-approved antibiotics, pipeline antibiotics, and antibacterial properties
of various FDA-approved drugs of anti-cancer, anti-fungal, anti-hyperlipidemia, antiinflammatory,
anti-malarial, anti-parasitic, anti-viral, genetic disorder, immune modulator,
etc. Further, in view of combination therapies with the existing antibiotics, their potential for
new implications for MDRBIs is discussed. The current review may provide essential data for
the development of quick, safe, effective, and novel antibiotics for current needs and suggest
acuity in its effective implications for inhibiting MDRBIs by repurposing existing drugs.
Screening of an FDA-Approved Library for Novel Drugs against Y. pestis