EU: Drug side effects could provide new medicines

A study by European researchers has suggested that new uses might be found for marketed drugs based on unwanted side effects. A striking example is the drug Viagra which was initially developed to treat angina but where its side effects of prolonged penile erection led to the development of a new blockbuster drug.

The new study, by researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), envisages a computational method that compares the similarity of the side effects of different drugs and predicts how likely it is that the drugs act on the same target molecule.

According to the paper, published in the journal Science, when applying the new method to 746 marketed drugs, the scientists found 261 dissimilar drugs that in addition to their known action were also likely bind to other unexpected molecular targets. Twenty drugs were tested experimentally and 13 showed binding to the targets that were predicted by side effect similarity.

In further testing of nine of the drugs "all showed activity and thus a desired effect on the cell through their interaction with the newly discovered target proteins".
The big advantage of marketed drugs, says the study, is that they have already been approved for safe use and so can be exploited much faster than newly discovered drugs.

alan.osborn@uw-news.com