Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes the complicated disease COVID-19. Clinicians are continuously facing huge problems in the treatment of patients

as COVID-19-specific drugs are not available

hence the principle of drug repurposing serves as a one-and-only hope. Globally

the repurposing of many drugs is underway; few of them are already approved by the regulatory bodies for their clinical use and most of them are in different phases of clinical trials. Here in this review

our main aim is to discuss in detail the up-to-date information on the target-based pharmacological classification of repurposed drugs

the potential mechanism of actions

and the current clinical trial status of various drugs which are under repurposing since early 2020. At last

we briefly proposed the probable pharmacological and therapeutic drug targets that may be preferred as a futuristic drug discovery approach in the development of effective medicines.