Objective: This project follows a lecture on circular economics in life science and health care given at Euro working group on MCDA in April 2023 in Jaen. Circular business models are well diffused in industry such as plastics or energy, but in pharmaceutical chains, linear supply models of management still prevail. However, medical technologies especially in countries such as India have taken the lead to propose circular models with recycled equipments. This paper will continue with a series of cases associated to circular models called drug repurposing; the economic analysis of a user case is presented on drugs for arthritis, and other repurposed.

Method: with the boost of covid 19, drug repurposing has expanded, this area is used to select the case studies were drugs previously approved for arthritis, were then considered against Covid 19; however, this process changes the duration model and conventional approval decision for drugs from medical agencies. This case study approach will compare the way the approval process was impacted for US and European agencies since discrete choice investment are no longer possible and new parameters have affected the risk management of drugs.

Result: On one hand, more investment need to be planned upfront, to consider additional applications; however other risk parameters on efficacy and safety of new applications on different subpopulations increase the uncertainties on what are the targeted populations for successful approval; the case of arthritis   drug; according to the severity of covid 19, the re purposed drug was or was not efficacious and could provide more harm than benefit.

Conclusion: new financial models may be necessary to consider circular business models in pharmaceutical drug re purposing; the success however during covid 19 crisis of such strategies encourages the pharmaceutical companies to include more indications, this may also change negotiations processes with medical agencies.