Drug repurposing identifies new uses for existing medicines, including approved drugs as well as investigational drugs that have demonstrated favourable pharmaceutical properties and human safety. This approach provides a compelling opportunity to develop urgently needed treatments, especially for conditions that may not otherwise attract commercial interest for de novo drug development, such as rare diseases. Together with its potential to reduce time and costs and thereby enhance the sustainability of healthcare systems, this has led to an active ecosystem engaged in drug repurposing R&D.

Acknowledgements

The REMEDi4ALL project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research & Innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101057442. This work reflects only the authors’ views and the EC is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The authors would like to thank the iDR programming and organizing teams for their efforts in designing and delivering the conferences.

The authors declare no competing interests.