A Narrative Review of Artificial Intelligence for Drug Repurposing: Lessons From <scp>COVID</scp> ‐19 and Oncology (2020–2025)

Drug repurposing presents a cost-effective and time-efficient strategy to identify new therapeutic applications for existing drugs. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning, knowledge graphs, and natural language processing, have revolutionized this field by enabling automated discovery of drug-disease associations. This review examines the role of artificial intelligence in drug repurposing, drawing insights from two critical case areas: Coronavirus disease 2019 and oncology. We explore current trends, methodological frameworks, and technological innovations in artificial intelligence-driven drug repurposing, as well as challenges and emerging future directions. The findings of this paper underscore the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in biomedical research and justify its continued integration in pharmaceutical pipelines.

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Publication Details

Journal
CPT Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology
Published
2026-06-29
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/psp4.70272
Primary Topic
Computational Drug Discovery Methods
Type
article
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article

A Narrative Review of Artificial Intelligence for Drug Repurposing: Lessons From COVID ‐19 and Oncology (2020–2025)

Malusi Sibiya, Alaba Bukola Ogungbite
CPT Pharmacometrics & Systems Pharmacology
Computational Drug Discovery Methods
article

A Narrative Review of Artificial Intelligence for Drug Repurposing: Lessons From COVID ‐19 and Oncology (2020–2025)

Malusi Sibiya, Alaba Bukola Ogungbite
article en

Abstract

Drug repurposing presents a cost-effective and time-efficient strategy to identify new therapeutic applications for existing drugs. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning, knowledge graphs, and natural language processing, have revolutionized this field by enabling automated discovery of drug-disease associations. This review examines the role of artificial intelligence in drug repurposing, drawing insights from two critical case areas: Coronavirus disease 2019 and oncology. We explore current trends, methodological frameworks, and technological innovations in artificial intelligence-driven drug repurposing, as well as challenges and emerging future directions. The findings of this paper underscore the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in biomedical research and justify its continued integration in pharmaceutical pipelines.

CPT Pharmacometrics & Systems PharmacologyVol. 15(7)
University of South Africa (ZA)
Openalex Percentile: Top 6%
Computational Drug Discovery Methods
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