The article mentioned several generic drugs that were successfully repurposed and there are hundreds more repurposing candidates from the thousands of generic drugs available. However, the lack of private incentives to repurpose generic drugs is well known - for example, the chance of a drug being repurposed for a new indication after it goes generic drops to almost zero - see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7780607/. Even if you could get a method of use patent for a new indication you can’t build a business case for repurposing unless you can prevent doctors and patients using the drug off-label. This means that generic drugs are essentially “public goods” that suffer from the “tragedy of the commons”. This is why we need to implement more private and public incentives to repurpose drugs Eg pay for success contracts to de-risk phase 2 clinical trials and increased public funding.