
On November 17 and 18, a TB Clinical Trials Consultants Meeting was held at St. George’s, University of London. The meeting was organized by CDC, CPTR, INTERTB, NIH, and TB Alliance. The meeting was convened to catalog expert opinion on the conduct of Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials in tuberculosis.
During last week, the Stop TB Partnership Working Group on New Drugs had a successful annual meeting in Lille, France, in conjunction with the 42nd Union World Conference. There were quite a few updates to the Global TB Drugs Pipeline showing progress toward the goal of better treatment for TB in all patient populations. Additional links to TB R&D news are included.
This week, we provide an brief overview of research supported by CNRS, INSERM, Institut Pasteur and other donors providing new evidence of the role of Zinc in the body’s immune response to intracellular infection by M.tb. and the microbe’s strategy to subvert this defense. Additional links to TB R&D news are included.
The first detailed study of the private tuberculosis (TB) drug market, published on May 4th, in the PLoS ONE journal, finds that the market is surprisingly large, and has irregular practices that could be driving treatment failures and contributing to the emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB).
Today on World TB Day, the International Scientific Exchange Foundation of China (ISEFC), announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance) to establish the Global Health R&D Center of China (GHRC). This innovative center will focus on the development of treatments for the world’s leading infectious disease killers—tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS.
In this week’s TB R&D update, we look at whether researchers should change their view and definitions of immunopathology in tuberculosis. The authors suggest that the term “caseous necrosis” should actually be split into three processes. The article is published in the February issue of Science Translational Medicine and is entitled “Tuberculosis immunopathology: the neglected role of extracellular matrix destruction.” Also, links to additional news in TB R&D are included.