When Soviet and Japanese scientists first characterized galantamine in the 1950s, they did not intend it to become a drug for Alzheimer’s disease. The early medical uses of this plant alkaloid — a cholinesterase inhibitor, and (as was found only much later) also a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor modulator – were for paralytic conditions and re-awakening from anesthesia, among others. Re-development as an oral treatment for primary degenerative dementia followed only 40 years later.
And this might not even be the end of the story. The cholinergic system plays a central role in areas of neurology and psychiatry that are not directly related to cognition. It is important even in immunology and infection.
Even the original repurposing history of galantamine is a textbook case of the non-scientific problems that such a project can face; such as, for example, fragmented intellectual property rights. Read about the fascinating story of galantamine, and what might still become of this now-generic drug, in our paper that has just been published in Future Science OA, a new Open Access journal.