<p>Potential Impact of the Multi-Target Drug Approach in the Treatment of Some Complex Diseases</p>

Abstract

It is essential to acknowledge the efforts made thus far to manage or eliminate various disease burden faced by humankind. However, the rising global trends of the so-called incurable diseases continue to put pressure on Pharma industries and other drug discovery platforms. In the past, drugs with more than one target were deemed as undesirable options with interest being on the one-drug-single target. Despite the successes of the single-target drugs, it is currently beyond doubt that these drugs have limited efficacy against complex diseases in which the pathogenesis is dependent on a set of biochemical events and several bioreceptors operating concomitantly. Different approaches have thus been proposed to come up with effective drugs to combat even the complex diseases. In the past, the focus was on producing drugs from screening plant compounds; today, we talk about combination therapy and multi-targeting drugs. The multi-target drugs have recently attracted much attention as promising tools to fight against most challenging diseases, and thus a new research focus area. This review will discuss the potential impact of multi-target drug approach on various complex diseases with focus on malaria, tuberculosis (TB), diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases as the main representatives of multifactorial diseases. We will also discuss alternative ideas to solve the current problems bearing in mind the fourth industrial revolution on drug discovery.

Tioconazole and Chloroquine Act Synergistically to Combat Doxorubicin-Induced Toxicity via Inactivation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR Signaling Mediated ROS-Dependent Apoptosis and Autophagic Flux Inhibition in MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cells

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“…This concept has been the basis of drug development for decades and resulted in immeasurable success for the pharmaceutical industry. Nonetheless, the efficacy of single-targeting drugs may be limited against complex and multifactorial diseases due to compensatory mechanisms or overlapping biological functions in immune pathophysiology (Makhoba et al, 2020). Thus, the concept of polypharmacology which aims to develop single drugs that recognize multiple molecular targets emerged rapidly as a popular strategy in drug design and development (Bolognesi, 2013;Makhoba et al, 2020).…”

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