In these times of ecological concerns, recycling offers to give new life to plastics, metals and various objects that invade our space.
The pharmaceutical industry has a particular conception of it, rather than recycling its waste into new crucibles, it seeks new therapeutic indications for molecules whose trade is running out of steam or whose patent expires. The clinical trials that accompany these retrainings have sometimes positive and often unusual results.
Glitazones, which proved ineffective and dangerous in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, have been revived for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia.
Thalidomide, of which everyone knows the catastrophic history, is today indicated in lupus, severe aphtoses and myeloma.
We are familiar with amphetamines, these drugs whose multiple derivatives have been declined by Servier. If this laboratory experienced the Mediator fiasco, others were happier with Ritalin indicated in attention deficit disorder in children and whose prescriptions are increasing dizzily without being too emotional.
Hydroxychloroquine, this old antimalarial, is of interest in polyarthritis and lupus and was recently proposed with great fanfare against covid-19.
Chronic pain is a headache, because all the drugs end up crashing into it; today the craze is for antiepileptics and antidepressants. The latter are also prescribed in enuresis, obsessive disorders, smoking cessation, obesity and female sexual dysfunction.
In general, psychotropic drugs are still on the list of these therapeutic extensions. The initial success of neuroleptics in schizophrenia led to one of the most important recycling drifts, they were proposed without further research for ailments as diverse as vomiting, insomnia, asthma, pruritus, pain, or even, more fancifully , menstruation disorders, banal anxiety or dehydration of the infant. We recently found them a virtue for covid-19, again her.
But the palm certainly goes to statins, these drugs intended to lower cholesterol levels. They have been found to be effective in multiple sclerosis, asthma, schizophrenia, bipolar disease, polycystic ovary, migraine and thirteen types of cancer, including breast and prostate cancer. They have been tested unsuccessfully in dementia, and finally in various infections of which… I let you guess which one.
Marketing genius never ceases to amaze me: after looking for molecules for diseases, today we are looking for diseases for molecules. However, the success of several of these recyclings imposes two scientific conclusions: all diseases are multifactorial and no molecule has only one effect.