TB Alliance

Subject: Science and Technology

Context: In Indian drugmaker has been roped-in by TB Alliance to make its tuberculosis drug pretomanid and strengthen global supplies.

Concept:

TB Alliance is a not-for-profit product development partnership (PDP), uniquely positioned to leverage a global network of public and private partners to most efficiently advance TB drug development.
A PDP builds partnerships between the public, private, academic, and philanthropic sectors to drive the development of new products for underserved markets.
PDPs retain direct management oversight of their projects, though much of the laboratory and clinical work is done though external research facilities and contractors.
This model minimizes costs, including overhead and investments in infrastructure, while optimizing scientific capability to speed new TB drug development.
In 2019, TB Alliance became the first not-for-profit organization to develop and register an anti-TB drug.
TB Alliance is a non-profit drug developer and its pretomanid is the third new drug developed for TB in over 40 years, after bedaquiline (from Johnson and Johnson) and delaminid (from Otsuka Pharmaceutical).
TB Alliance’s President, had indicated that a collaboration was in the offing with an Indian drug marker to shore-up global supplies.
Pretomanid is part of a three drug regimen that includes bedaquiline and linezolid and is used to treat those with extensive drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) or multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), who are treatment-intolerant or non-responsive.