Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Prairie View A&M University have found that some cancer drugs can potentially be used to treat pulmonary hypertension, a rare lung disease that is otherwise incurable.

A study published in the scientific journal Science Advances used an algorithm to sort through cancer treatment drugs and identify which ones could be useful to treat pulmonary hypertension.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a type of high blood pressure that occurs in the vessels that transport blood from the heart to the lungs. The disease makes the heart work harder, and can result in heart failure, multi-organ dysfunction and death. The condition can affect anyone, but tends to affect young women more often than men.

“Repurposing drugs can cut down the time and cost of developing treatments for rare diseases, which historically don't receive much investment into research and drug development,” senior author Stephen Chan, professor of medicine and director of the Vascular Medicine Institute at Pitt and UPMC, said in a statement.

“Pulmonary hypertension is an example of a rare disease where there is an unmet need for new treatments, given its devastating consequences. We developed this pipeline to rapidly predict which drugs are effective for PH and get these treatments to patients faster.”

Chan worked with co-senior author Seungchan Kim, chief scientist and executive professor of electrical and computer engineering at Prairie View A&M, to develop the algorithm used in the study.“We thought two worlds could collide together in this project,” Chan said. “By combining computer science with what we think is important in caring for patients, we think that that's the next wave of studies that can be made.”Re-evaluating existing drugs, he said, can make the process of finding treatment a lot more efficient.“Historically speaking, it takes about 10 years at this point for a new drug development, taking it all the way through to treating patients,” he said. “It's a really long process. If there is already data and experience for using that medication for other diseases, like cancer, that takes a ton of time down.”The study made predictions using the algorithm about which cancer-treatment drugs would be useful in treating PH and tested them both in a mouse and in cells in a dish from human patients with PH. Both models found that two drug compounds, named I-BET762 and BRD2889, proved effective in treating PH.

To Chan, the study is a good sign for future advances in medicine.“Drug repurposing could have a lot of widespread application if we figure out how to harness that potential,” he said. “We think that there are broad implications beyond just simply the two types of drugs that we tested in this approach.”Some of those implications could be relevant in the treatment of emerging or rare diseases.“Unlike cancer, where there has been so much investment and time for getting the data out of the specific drugs, in rare and emerging diseases, we may not have that data,” he said. “Being able to repurpose the data and the drugs that are used in cancer into these other diseases where we don't have that ability to generate that level of numbers, that's where I think we can actually have the most benefit.”Emerging diseases, he said, include new pathogens that could result in future pandemics down the line.“Say, for instance, (when) the next pandemic comes along, we may be better suited to be able to react in a quicker fashion, and that would be very advantageous,” he said. “A lot of preparatory actions are going on about how we will respond to the next pandemic, even if we can't know exactly what that pathogen is going to be.”