Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System
Open Access

Review Article

Drug Rediscovery: Preventing Off-label Prescription and Reducing Health Care Costs: The Case of Thioguanine in the Netherlands

Chris J. J. Mulder^*, Dirk P. van Asseldonk and Nanne K de Boer

Department Gastroenterology and Hepatology, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Chris JJ Mulder
Department Gastroenterology and Hepatology
VU University Medical Center, PO Box 7057
1007 MB Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel: +31-20-4440613
Fax: +31-20-4440554
E-mail: cjmulder@vumc.nl

Received Date: May 01, 2014; Accepted Date: January 20, 2015; Published Date: January 25, 2015

Citation: Mulder CJJ, Asseldonk DPV, de Boer NK (2015) Drug Rediscovery: Preventing Off-label Prescription and Reducing Health Care Costs: The Case of Thioguanine in the Netherlands. J Gastrointest Dig Syst 5:249. doi:10.4172/2161-069X.1000249

Copyright: © 2015 Mulder CJJ, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

We have concerned ourselves at the gastroenterology unit of the VU University Medical Center with drug repositioning since 2001. Generic therapy, often successfully used off-label in daily practice and well described in literature in large observational studies, should be further developed for safe and economically viable use. To prevent off-label use legislative authoritiesshouldstimulate re-registration of these drugs.

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