Pharmacological profiles of neglected tropical disease drugs

Abstract

According to the World health Organization there are a group of 20 diverse infectious Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) conditions that primarily affect populations in low-income and developing regions. Despite the limited attention and funding compared to other health concerns, significant efforts to develop drugs for treating and controlling NTDs have been made. However, there is room for developing NTD drugs with improved safety, efficacy and ecotoxicological profiles. In order to facilitate this, we have adapted our existing validated data-driven workflows for understanding disease comorbidity to systematically evaluate the approved drugs that target the major World Health Organization defined NTDs. The foundation for this work comprised assembling the physicochemical, biological and clinical properties of each NTD drug and identifying patterns that reveal the underlying cause of their efficacy and side-effect profiles. Subsequently, computational methods were employed to identify analogs with potentially improved profiles and validated in a case study focusing on the teratogenic antileishmanial drug miltefosine. The wider impact of NTD drugs with regards to a One Health cross-disciplinary perspective at the human-animal-environment interface are also discussed.