Diagnostics for Repurposed Drugs

Precision Diagnostics is a prerequisite for Precision Medicine by enabling a characterization of diseases on a molecular level leading to mechanism-based treatment. Giving the right drug to the right patient at the right dose and at the right time requires novel biomarker signatures to stratify patients accordingly.

Diagnostics play an essential role in the context of drug repurposing, where existing drugs are investigated and repurposed for a new therapeutic use. They are important to identify the eligible patient population for a repurposed drug. Diagnostics are extremely valuable in determining which patients are most likely to benefit from a specific treatment. This way the effectiveness of a drug or combination of drugs is significantly increased and the chance of potential adverse effects is reduced. In addition to precise diagnostics in the wet-lab, both the patient recruitment and avoidance of adverse events can currently be supported by artificial intelligence (AI) based on empirical data sets (Cai, T. et al., 2021, Syrowatka, A. et al., 2022).