Purposeful Reprofiling

摘要

While the repurposing of drugs has yet to become the standard-of-care in oncology, the use of repurposed drugs is not new. History provides us with three examples that show different pathways for incorporation into cancer treatment. Valproic acid or Valproate - an analogue of valeric acid found in the plant Valerian - was first synthesised in 1882 by BS Burton, and it was first approved in France in 1967 as an antiepileptic drug (1,2). This gamma-aminobutyricacid (GABA) transaminase inhibitor and voltage-gated sodium channel blocker has also been approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder and migraines and, more recently, it was discovered to function as a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor (3).