Repurposing Medicines: an undervalued toolkit in Paediatrics

Background: Repurposing medications is well known amongst adults, having being utilized during the COVID pandemic. The NHS repurposing medications programme current research work continues to prioritise adult repurposing work for rare diseases rather than in Paediatrics.

Objective: To understand the potential opportunities and challenges to repurposing medications in children.

Opportunities: Repurposing is a vital tool in decreasing the time a drug is available to patients by shortening the required trial period. It allows clinicians to potentially impact a patient’s life within the disease timeframe rather than years down the line by utilizing data already available. We have safety profiles of medications such as biologics available but do not utilize this across specialities. Paediatric oncology have repurposed medications successfully and could guide future endeavours. One area where repurposing medications would be beneficial is in IgA vasculitis, currently there is limited treatment options, however there are similarities to IgA nephropathy in adults that has multiple treatment options. Repurposing biologics has been already utilized in other inflammatory diseases, Anakinra was utilized in Paediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome, showing repurposing can be successful.

Challenges: There are challenges to repurposing any medication. However, in children there are additional layers. There is complexity around medication prescribing and administration to availability of data regarding drug safety. Within Paediatrics, medicines require adapting depending on weight, age, or body surface area adding to difficulties.

Conclusion: We need to be proactive and utilise information that we do have around repurposing and drug safety profiles linking this to rare diseases in children.

Repurposing medications needs to occur with the same determination in children as we do in adult diseases. We must not shy away just because there may be more barriers to cross.

Author and article information

Conference

Publisher: ScienceOpen

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 12 April 2025

Affiliations

[1 ] Department of Women and Childs Health, University of Liverpool, Institute in the Park Alder Hey Childrens Hospital. ( https://ror.org/04xs57h96)

[2 ] Department of Women's and Children's Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK ( https://ror.org/04xs57h96)

[3 ] National Institute for Health Research, Alder Hey Clinical Research Facility, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, UK ( https://ror.org/04z61sd03)

[4 ] UCL Centre for Bladder and Kidney Health, London, UK ( https://ror.org/02jx3x895)

[5 ] Department of Paediatric Nephrology, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, UK ( https://ror.org/00zn2c847)

[6 ] Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK ( https://ror.org/04xs57h96)

[7 ] Department of Renal Medicine, University College London, UCL Medical School, Rowland Hill Street, London, NW3 2PF, UK ( https://ror.org/02jx3x895)

Article

DOI: 10.14293/iDR.25.016CM

SO-VID: 90cfae6d-cd82-4aab-b894-24c56b2d6d14

License:

Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International ( CC BY 4.0). Users are allowed to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially), as long as the authors and the publisher are explicitly identified and properly acknowledged as the original source.

Conference name: International Drug Repurposing Conference 2025

Conference acronym: iDR25

Conference number: 2

Conference location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Conference date: 7-8 May 2025

History

Product

ScienceOpen

Keywords: Repurposing Medicines,Paediatrics