New drug-development paradigms? Opportunities and uncertainties with new government drug repurposing programs

Drug repurposing, the idea of finding new uses for authorized drugs, can be cheaper and faster than developing new compounds. Yet, repurposing remains underutilized, partially due to regulatory and intellectual property challenges. Over the past few years, US, UK, and EU policymakers have created seven drug development programs aiming to overcome these challenges. While each program seeks to accelerate repurposing, they do so via different strategies. This paper presents the first comparison of these programs, showing they offer new opportunities for organizations in drug development, including academics, physicians, and companies. Moreover, this paper shows that at least three programs feature new drug-development models. These models rely less on (i) patents and (ii) industry and more on (a) governments and (b) clinical trials conducted by hospitals and universities. However, the effectiveness of the programs is uncertain, and this paper begins the conversation about studying and improving them.