Current Status and Future Perspectives on Multi-target Drugs Development in Cardiovascular Diseases

The incidence and mortality of cardiovascular diseases （CVD） in China continue to rise，and the turning point has not yet arrived. The development of medicine has to some extent improved the prognosis of CVD patients. How to reduce the residual risk of cardiovascular diseases in the Chinese population and further reduce the terminal events，and improve the survival rate of cardiovascular diseases among Chinese people is the main problem currently faced by the research and development of cardiovascular disease drugs. The mechanism of cardiovascular diseases is complex，and there is often a lack of a single core target. The combination target drug intervention strategy achieves “increasing efficacy and reducing toxicity” and improving drug resistance by balancing the regulation of multiple targets，and has a good application prospect. This article reviews the principles for target selection，lead compound design and synthesis strategies，advances and challenges in preclinical effects evaluations，and clinical trial design for multi-target CVD drugs. Furthermore，it explores the application of emerging technologies such as systems biology，artificial intelligence and deep learning，organoids，and organ-on-a-chip in the discovery of combination targets，drug molecule design，and the evaluation of pharmacodynamics and drug metabolism. The aim is to offer new insights and references for the development of multi-target drugs for cardiovascular diseases in China.