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APT drug R&D: the right active ingredient in the right presentation for the right therapeutic use

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 8, pages 849–853 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Drug repurposing, in which an established active pharmaceutical ingredient is applied in a new way — for example, for a new indication, and often combined with an alternative method of presentation, such as a novel delivery route — is an evolving strategy for pharmaceutical R&D. This article discusses examples of the success of this strategy, and presents an analysis of sales of US pharmaceutical products that suggests that this low-risk approach to new product development retains substantial commercial value.

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Figure 1: APT pharmaceutical R&D.
Figure 2: Analysis of the characteristics of the top 200 drugs by US sales in 2007.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to D. Middlemiss for positive criticism and advice in the preparation of this manuscript.

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  1. David Cavalla is at Numedicus Limited, Cambridge, CB1 2DX, UK. David.cavalla@numedicus.co.uk,

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D.C. is Director of Numedicus.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (table)

Sales analysis: top 200 drugs in USA* (PDF 443 kb)

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Cavalla, D. APT drug R&D: the right active ingredient in the right presentation for the right therapeutic use. Nat Rev Drug Discov 8, 849–853 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd2981

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