About the Portal
Drug repositioning is a recent effort in the pharmaceutical industry. It aims to find new uses for the marketed or pipeline drugs, typically by identifying a new disease indication, new delivery method or new combination with other drugs. In addition to 2800 marketed compounds, there are may be as many as 10,000 or more compounds that never made it to the market. This pool is comprised of late-stage, pre-clinical through phase III clinical trial compounds that were discontinued for a number of reasons, including a lack of adequate efficacy in the originally intended indication, lack of perceived commercial potential, reorganization, companies exiting the therapeutic area, etc. Generally, this set of compounds includes a wide variety of structural diversity and mechanisms of action. Information about the discontinued compounds is hard to find due to a lack of public disclosures, yet these high quality compounds with drug-like characteristics would have tremendous value to the international research community and the patients they seek to help. A compound available from such a library would already be highly advanced, have passed safety assessments, and have either been tested in or was deemed appropriate for clinical trials. Discontinued compounds represent an important source of untapped potential.The academic research often finds novel targets, but a few academic researchers have an ability to develop drugs for these targets in the academic setting. Therefore, a drug with an established clinical safety profile presents an attractive opportunity for translational research, satisfying both academic and commercial goals. The marriage of the two would undoubtedly result in an increased number of approved drugs for new indications, and thus in considerable public benefit.
The Pharmaceutical Assets Portal project aims to facilitate the match between CTSA-affiliated investigators and the pharmaceutical industry with the aim of developing research partnerships based on compounds shelved at the clinical stage.