title: Drug repositioning for Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: Existing drugs for Alzheimer's disease provide symptomatic benefit for up to 12 months, but there are no approved disease-modifying therapies. Given the recent failures of various novel disease-modifying therapies in clinical trials, a complementary strategy based on repositioning drugs that are approved for other indications could be attractive. Indeed, a substantial body of preclinical work indicates that several classes of such drugs have potentially beneficial effects on Alzheimer's-like brain pathology, and for some drugs the evidence is also supported by epidemiological data or preliminary clinical trials. Here, we present a formal consensus evaluation of these opportunities, based on a systematic review of published literature. We highlight several compounds for which sufficient evidence is available to encourage further investigation to clarify an optimal dose and consider progression to clinical trials in patients with Alzheimer's disease.
authors.affiliation: Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, King's College London, London SE1 1UL, UK.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Corbett
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pickett
authors.forename: Alistair
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Corcoran
authors.forename: Stephen B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Dunnett
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Edison
authors.forename: Jim J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Hagan
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Cornelius
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Katona
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kearns
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kehoe
authors.forename: Amrit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mudher
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Passmore
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shepherd
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.forename: Clive
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ballard
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D000818:Animals; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D017277:Drug Approval; D015195:Drug Design; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans