Polypharmacology and supercomputer-based docking: Opportunities and challenges

Polypharmacology, the ability of drugs to interact with multiple targets, is a fundamental concept of interest to the pharmaceutical industry in its efforts to solve the current issues of the rise in the cost of drug development and decline in productivity. Polypharmacology has the potential to greatly benefit drug repurposing, bringing existing pharmaceuticals on the market to treat different ailments quicker and more affordably than developing new drugs, and may also facilitate the development of new, potent pharmaceuticals with reduced negative off-target effects and adverse side effects. Present day computational power, when combined with applications such as supercomputer-based virtual high-throughput screening (docking) will enable these advances on a massive chemogenomic level, potentially transforming the pharmaceutical industry. However, while the potential of supercomputing-based drug discovery is unequivocal, the technical and fundamental challenges are considerable.