Systematic Evaluation of Drug-Disease Relationships to Identify Leads for Novel Drug Uses

Drug repositioning refers to the discovery of alternative uses for drugs-uses that are different from that for which the drugs were originally intended. One challenge in this effort lies in choosing the indication for which a drug of interest could be prospectively tested. We systematically evaluated a drug treatment-based view of diseases in order to address this challenge. Suggestions for novel drug uses were generated using a guilt by association approach. When compared with a control group of drug uses, the suggested novel drug uses generated by this approach were significantly enriched with respect to previous and ongoing clinical trials.