“The first-ever drug regimen designed to treat both drug-sensitive TB and MDR-TB [multidrug-resistant TB] has reached a critical milestone and will advance to a global Phase III clinical trial — the last, but most important stage of testing before it can be made available,” Mel Spigelman, president and CEO of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, writes in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. “Scientifically, it would fully validate a new approach to develop TB treatments, one that would reduce the time it takes to develop novel regimens from decades to years. Economically, it would shatter the existing cost-based burdens to expanding MDR-TB care. And, from a human perspective, it would transform TB treatment, improving health and productivity around the world,” he writes (4/23).