Drug Repurposing
Clinical trials are costly and time-consuming, requiring ten to fifteen years of dedicated research.
Fast development
Low cost
Safety profile
Combined therapies
Drug repurposing means using an FDA-approved medication for one condition or disease to treat a different one. A great example of drug repurposing is Minoxidil, a pill originally created in the 1970s as a high blood pressure treatment. Minoxidil had already undergone rigorous, expensive safety testing; its side effects and dosage were well documented. Under the brand name Rogaine, Minoxidil was repurposed in 1988 and became the first FDA-approved drug for male pattern baldness.
Developing a new cancer drug can take 10-15 years at a cost of over two billion dollars. Repurposing an existing drug can take just a few years and cost just a fraction of that price.
FDA-approved drugs such as Fenbendazole and Mebendazole, which currently treat intestinal worms and parasites, show promise for treating cancer and have already undergone FDA testing for use in that treatment.
Mebendazole and Fenbendazole are low-cost drugs available worldwide and supported by decades of safety data and peer-reviewed studies. Both are typically taken as a single dose or short course. Understanding the pharmacokinetics of Fenbendazole is key to assessing its absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination in the human body.
Repurposing Fenbendazole for cancer patients is accelerated and cost-effective, thanks to existing safety and pharmacokinetic data.
Unfortunately, most funding for clinical trials comes from pharmaceutical companies. Since Fenbendazole is a low-cost generic drug that will NOT reap the profits of a new drug, there is little financial incentive to conduct expensive clinical trials. This is a classic problem for repurposed drugs.
Always remember that Fenbendazole is not a replacement for proven cancer treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy. Without medical supervision, the self-administration of any drug may be dangerous. When possible, Fenbendazole should be viewed as a complementary treatment rather than a replacement for conventional therapies.
A 2022 review highlighted the potential to repurpose Fenbendazole and other benzimidazole carbamates from veterinary anti-parasitics to cancer therapies.
The document detailed preclinical and clinical trial data and suggested that Fenbendazole could be a promising low-cost addition for cancer treatment. The authors concluded that Fenbendazole offered a cost-effective, less toxic alternative to conventional cancer treatments, specifically cancers that have been found resistant to traditional therapeutics such as chemotherapy.
Double Repositioning: Veterinary Antiparasitic to Human Anticancer
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9029030/pdf/ijms-23-04315.pdf
However, the development of multidrug resistance to chemotherapeutics has become a huge impediment to successful cancer treatment. Clearly, new therapeutic alternatives are required to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment. Before being marketed as a new drug, lead compounds face many hurdles in preclinical and clinical studies to ensure their quality, safety, dosage, and efficacy. Clinical trials are costly and time-consuming, requiring ten to fifteen years of dedicated research. The entire development process of bringing a single candidate compound to market is hindered by the exorbitant costs (approximately $1–$2.5 billion) of the trials required for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.
Drug resistance and combating drug resistance in cancer
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8315569/
Part 6