MSF Releases Report On TB Prevention, Treatment R&D Landscape
“Without a new approach to developing and pricing new tuberculosis (TB) medicines, the global TB response will be unable to deliver the new treatment combinations needed to close the deadly treatment gap for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB),” Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned Wednesday at the 44th Union World Conference on Lung Health in Paris, where the organization “released DR-TB Drugs Under the Microscope, a report on the prices, sources, access environment and [research and development (R&D)] landscape for DR-TB medicines,” according to an MSF press release. The FDA in December 2012 “fast-tracked the approval of bedaquiline, the [WHO] issued rapid guidelines for its use, and Johnson & Johnson has pushed for registration fairly widely,” the press release notes, adding these are all “positive signals that the TB context is ready to respond quickly to new drugs.” However, “achieving the goal of entirely new regimens requires a more fundamental change in the way TB drugs are researched and brought to market,” according to MSF (10/30).
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