Company: APM
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001213900-25-037669
Chunk: 117

Company: Aptorum Group Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 117
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 to be attractive due to its superior risk management, smaller capital investment and quicker financial return.
(Sudeep Pushpakom, et. al. Drug repurposing: progress, challenges and recommendations. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 18, 41-58, 2019)

The cost of bringing a repurposed
drug is estimated to be around US$300 million, which is only one-tenth of the development cost for a new drug. (Nosengo, N. Can you teach
old drugs new tricks? Nature. 534, 314-316, 2016).

In summary, drug repurposing
offers the following advantages:

  Well-established safety profiles: The development risk for new indications can be substantially reduced by applying existing drugs that are approved or have been shown to be safe in large scale...  

  Time-saving: As repositioned drugs can rely on existing data, including efficacy and toxicity studies, the process is usually faster than de novo development. Developing a new chemical entity (...  
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  Cost-saving: Along with time-saving, money-saving is also a key benefit. The cost to relaunch a repositioned drug averages $8.4 million, whereas to relaunch a new formulation of an existing dru...  

  Potential for out-licensing: Pharmaceutical companies are said to be exploring new models to out-license some of their clinical drug candidates that may have been shelved for pure business reas...  
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  Lower failure rate: According to BCC Research, approval rates for repurposed drugs are close to 30%, which is greater than the approval rate for new drug applications. (Front Oncol. 2017; 7: 273)  

One of the major limitations
of the current drug repurposing and repositioning practice is that there is a lack of a systematic way to identify and reinvestigate drugs
that are approved and/or have failed approval.

SACT-1 is the first repurposed
drug candidate to be developed under the Smart-ACT®drug discovery platform. SCAT-1 is one of the Company’s proprietary
technologies. Our first targeted indication is neuroblastoma. Neuroblastoma is a rare form of