It requires approximately 800 million dollars(US)and 10 years to successfully bring a drug from the laboratory bench into the clinic(DiMasi et al.,2003).Thus,the breakthrough discovery of today will not be available i...It requires approximately 800 million dollars(US)and 10 years to successfully bring a drug from the laboratory bench into the clinic(DiMasi et al.,2003).Thus,the breakthrough discovery of today will not be available in the clinic for many years,and many dollars,after this initial discovery.One potential way to speed up this drug developmental cycle is by repurposing drugs that have been previously approved for an alternate clinical indication.With this goal in mind,Beachy and colleagues set out to identify a drug with efficacy against tumors that were dependant on the Hedgehog(HH)signaling pathway.They reported in the April issue of a leading cancer research journal that Itraconazole,a commonly used antifungal drug,can be turned against HH’s signaling function(Kim et al.,2010).It has been estimated that 25%of all human tumors may be HH dependent(Teglund et al,2010).展开更多
文摘It requires approximately 800 million dollars(US)and 10 years to successfully bring a drug from the laboratory bench into the clinic(DiMasi et al.,2003).Thus,the breakthrough discovery of today will not be available in the clinic for many years,and many dollars,after this initial discovery.One potential way to speed up this drug developmental cycle is by repurposing drugs that have been previously approved for an alternate clinical indication.With this goal in mind,Beachy and colleagues set out to identify a drug with efficacy against tumors that were dependant on the Hedgehog(HH)signaling pathway.They reported in the April issue of a leading cancer research journal that Itraconazole,a commonly used antifungal drug,can be turned against HH’s signaling function(Kim et al.,2010).It has been estimated that 25%of all human tumors may be HH dependent(Teglund et al,2010).
