Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already proven its impact on medical practice and science. With the increasing generation of healthcare data, AI applications offer enormous potential in clinical and regulatory decision-making, public health and administration, as well as in research and development. We conducted a scoping literature review to identify publications that discuss potential AI-based technologies for identifying repurposing-eligible medicines and for improving access to innovative therapies. More than half of the articles (18/26, 69%) were published in 2020 and 2021, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and focused on developing AI-based algorithms to accelerate screening for medicines that could be potentially repurposed. These algorithms proved to be a powerful tool to save resources and time during the pandemic, fulfil unmet medical needs and facilitate faster access to innovations. Most articles aimed to provide the scientific community and researchers with a strong rationale and/or support for the application of AI-based tools in the process of drug repurposing. However, more studies need to be performed, as currently, AI-based tools for drug repurposing need further verification.