The Marketing Successes Of Drug Repositioning

The concept of drug repositioning is an essential part of life sciences, as it allows for medications that have already been subject to clinical trials to be used to try and treat other conditions, sometimes to great success.

Drug repositioning as a strategy is primarily used to help treat rarer conditions as the research costs are much lower than the typical costs for developing a new medicine, and because they can often skip clinical trial steps, can also be released to the public faster.

Whilst much of the work is in research, drug repositioning often requires effective life science marketing to present the existing medication as a viable treatment for a rare condition or one that had previously had very few viable treatments.

Here are two major examples of marketing helping with successful drug repositioning.

1. The Rehabilitation Of Thalidomide

The medication thalidomide was at the centre of the biggest man-made medical disaster in history, as ineffective drug-testing methodology in the 1950s led to a medication that caused birth defects to be offered as a cure for morning sickness.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 children were affected, with compensation payments being made to this very day.

However, thalidomide was found to be a very effective treatment for leprosy, a painful and potentially life-threatening nerve condition. An Israeli doctor used it despite its ban in 1964, and over 30 years later it would be approved by the US FDA and was advertised as Thalomid, albeit under strict conditions.

1. Matters Of Heart And Body

In the mid-1980s, Pfizer was attempting to develop a drug for treating angina called sildenafil, but after a few small-scale trials, a rather unusual side effect was found, which led to further study for its effects on erectile dysfunction.

Up until this point, the only effective treatment for ED had been injections of papaverine, which due to the needle made it largely impractical for situations where someone would need treatment for ED.

The medical compound sildenafil turned out to work quite well and by 1998 was approved by the FDA, leading to several highly effective advertising campaigns, most notably by famous footballer Pele.