This is the second grant received by the TB Alliance from the Gates Foundation. The grant quadruples the foundation’s initial support.
The funding will serve to pursue pre-clinical trials and continue engagement with policy-makers, TB drug providers, and advocates to ensure that TB drugs are made affordable and accessible in developing countries.
No major R&D breakthrough in drug development has occurred in thirty years. Since its formation in 2000, the TB Alliance has built a pipeline of 11 new drug candidates that are expected to dramatically reduce the current length of treatment. It is estimated that an additional 100 million dollars will be required in order to advance the existing pipeline.
TB is one of the oldest infectious diseases with a reach that extends to all economies and continents. In the last decade, TB cases have grown 20% worldwide with the highest burden in the most impoverished communities and in several hotspots of drug resistance which are growing in Eastern Europe and Russia. Aside from the TB Alliance, there is no other organisation that carries out this kind of work at this scale. European governments have an opportunity to cooperate and make a difference to the development of new drugs to combat TB by supporting the work of the TB Alliance.
For more information on Tuberculosis
World TB Day 2006: a mixed picture
Second Global Plan brings the fight against TB to a new level
Commission adopts new Communication to confront HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis outside the EU
