TB Alliance Research Articles

Public-Private Drug Ventures Get Funding

Public-private partnerships looking to cure some of the world's most devastating yet often neglected diseases got a shot in the arm last week. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $104 million to the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, which is trying to find faster and simpler cures for tuberculosis. The grant will help fund a Phase III trial of the alliance's most advanced candidate, the Bayer antibiotic moxifloxacin, as well as enable the development of 10 other potential treatments. Current TB treatment calls for patients to take an average of 130 doses, each of which entails as many as 11 pills, over the course of six months. That regimen is difficult to maintain and is often too protracted for patients who also have AIDS, says Maria C. Freire, CEO of the TB alliance. Moxifloxacin could cut two months off that treatment time. The long-term goal is to find novel antibiotics that can ...