Submitted Abstract
The global burden of BC is evident. BC is the 10th most common cancer worldwide, with an estimated 549,000 new cases and 200,000 deaths in 2018 [1]. At the same time, BC is the costliest cancer to manage, imposing a strong economic burden [2]. Thus, delivering better care for BC patients is required. Industry is under pressure to meet the expectations of growing numbers of patients and find ways to address challenges of drug development. To move forward, drug repurposing has emerged as a promising strategy to overcome expensive and long discovery and early development studies [3]. The goal of the project is to deliver new candidates for drug repurposing in BC (the products) to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, with the evidence on the potential anti-cancer effect supported by in vitro and animal studies. Thus, considering the quality of scientific evidence, the product will have a drug repositioning level of 2 [4], supported by animal studies with hypothetical relevance in man. Emphasis is placed on the drugs/ compounds predicted to reverse molecular changes associated with BC (BC signature), using an in silico repurposing approach. Since BC is a heterogeneous disease, patients with similar clinical manifestation of disease may respond differently to specific drugs, due to the different molecular background. As such, to best reflect molecular changes associated with BC, disease signatures will be defined based on the knowledge gained through high-resolution proteomics analysis of disease-affected tissue, supported by available transcriptomics and literature-mined data. Considering the product development-oriented nature of the project, the drugs/ compounds will be shortlisted, focusing on those with known safety and tolerability profile and meeting requirements for patent protection. As such, the product will be available for market entry and subsequent clinical development by industry sector.