Antiviral Activity of Approved Anti-Inflammatory Drugs and Prospects for Drug Repurposing: A review

Abstract

Drug discovery and development are lengthy and expensive processes that face serious challenges. A new compound must not only produce the desired response with minimal side effects but must also demonstrate better activity than existing drugs. Thus, modification of existing drugs is easier than discovery of new drugs. Furthermore, the rate of development of new antiviral agents has declined significantly in recent decades, and pathogenic viruses have become more serious and have developed resistance against antiviral drugs. Hence, owing to multidrug resistance, severe side effects, and the emergence of new virus types, there is an urgent need for the development of new alternative or synergistic antiviral drugs with minimal side effects. Anti-inflammatory drugs represent a group of drugs with broad clinical applications and remain one of the most widely used medications worldwide. They can relieve the most common symptoms of viral infections (pain and fever). Thus, many researchers have screened for antiviral activities among the marketed anti-inflammatory drugs against different types of viral infections, based on the observed antiviral activity in different preclinical and clinical studies. This mini-review article summarizes preclinical studies (in silico, in vitro, and in vivo) that evaluated the antiviral activity of approved anti-inflammatory drugs.