Industry news: Millions donated to fund TB research

This initiative will be funded by pharmaceutical company Lilly to the tune of US$15 million. Eli Lilly was recognized last week at the Global Business Coalition's Annual Awards Gala in New York City for conceiving and implementing a global partnership to address tuberculosis.

Based at the Infectious Diseases Research Institute in Seattle, Washington, this partnership will involve government organisations, academia, researchers and pharma companies with the goal of finding new answers for TB, a widespread pandemic which has become increasingly resistant to older medications. Lilly will commit $15 million over the next five years to the partnership which will include expertise, laboratory equipment and access to thousands of medicinal compounds. In fact, Lilly will make more than 500 000 of their medicinal compounds available to the partnership's researchers, who will test and screen them for possible TB treatments. This research project brings Lilly's total financial support to fight TB to US$135 million.

"We recognise that new drugs are needed to help fight this deadly but curable disease. For Lilly this means that in addition to the programs we support, specifically drug access through the transfer of technology of two of our older drugs, we are also focusing on the training of health care professionals as well as patient, community and workplace programmes. Lilly has now closed the loop by focusing on an area that is critical in the treatment, management and control of TB, says Wandia Musomba, Corporate Affairs Manager for Lilly South Africa.

The present decade has seen a reawakening of TB drug research and development, spurred by an urgent need to stem the tide of the disease globally and develop new, more effective treatments against drug-sensitive strains. The primary goal of this research and development is to shorten and simplify the treatment of active TB, provide safer and more efficacious treatments for drug-resistant TB, simplify treatment for TB-HIV co-infections by eliminating troublesome drug interactions and shorten treatment for latent TB infection.

Two billion people worldwide are estimated to be infected with Mycobaceterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB. Less than one percent of these have active tuberculosis, while the rest are referred to as having latent TB. Of the approximately nine million new cases of active TB each year, all but approximately 425 000 are estimated to be sensitive to current therapy.

The urgency for improved treatments is driven by the fact that globally TB is not being controlled effectively with presently available treatment, particularly in parts of the world with limited public health infrastructure, high HIV incidence or both. The limited effectiveness of current treatment stems from the lengthy and complicated nature of first-line treatment, which normally means a six to nine month course of a variety of drugs. The most problematic issues include inadequate adherence to the treatment course, attributable to its length, complexity and associated adverse effects. Identification of drugs that will shorten treatment and thereby improve adherence is key to radically improving active TB treatment, decreasing demands on national TB control programs, and preventing further selection of resistant strains.

Collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and academic institutions is aiding the development of new treatments, as can be seen by this new partnership by Lilly.