Traditional de novo drug discovery and development involves an HTS campaign for de novo candidate hits and requires highly specialized screening facilities and compound libraries containing several million compounds. It is a time consuming and expensive process. As the regulation for drug safety and efficacy is increasingly getting complex, the cost of developing new drugs is keeping skyrocket. Drug repositioning, also known as old drugs for new uses, is an effective strategy to find new indications for existing drugs and has recently drawn attention and has led to several blockbuster drugs because of its high efficiency and low-cost. High-content screens, new biomarkers, noninvasive imaging techniques, and advanced in bioinformatics have created new opportunities for pursuing novel indications for approved compounds.

The Drug Repurposing Compound Library by TargetMol, containing 4920 approved and clinical drugs, which have undergone extensive preclinical studies and have well-characterized bioactivities, safety and bioavailability – properties which could dramatically accelerate drug development and optimization, is a good tool for drug repurposing and cell induction.