Our new scientific paper, “Drug Upgrade: a complete methodology from old drug to New Chemical Entities using Nematic Protein Organization Technique”, has been published in Drug Development Research.  

Considering the persistent challenges – high attrition rates, significant costs, and protracted development phases – associated with drug discovery and development, drug repurposing has emerged as an undeniably attractive approach. 

That’s why, we propose Drug Upgrade a methodology enabling the repurposing of any existing drugs including approved, discontinued, shelved, and investigational therapeutics. 

By using our NPOT platform, we described and validated experimentally a new mode of action of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) by assessing its interaction with myeloperoxidase (MPO) and alpha-crystallin β chain (CRYAB) as primary and secondary HCQ targets. Our findings explain retinopathy as side effects associated with HCQ treatments through Off-Target interaction with CRYAB. Then we proposed and synthetized an HCQ analog with no-side effect and with higher affinity with MPO. By upgrading HCQ we opened novel clinical applications for a well-established drug. 

– Full scientific paper available on Drug Development Research