TB research programme to assess new drug combinations

Researchers at the University of Liverpool are coordinating a £19 million programme with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to accelerate the development of new combination drugs to treat tuberculosis (TB), which affects approximately nine million people worldwide every year.

Funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the PreDiCT-TB project is working in partnership with 15 academic institutions, two SMEs and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) pharmaceutical partners, Sanofi and Janssen..

Scientists will be using new molecular and imaging technologies to study the effect of drugs in eradication of TB bacteria and statistical models which bring together important data from preclinical and clinical trials using new drug treatment programmes.

Dr Gerry Davies, from the University’s Institutes of Infection and Global Health and Translational Medicine, said: “Patients must endure at least six months of treatment to be sure of a cure and in some cases the bacterial strain is resistant to multiple drug types. It is essential that we understand how to select the best combinations of new drugs to improve and shorten treatment times for all varieties of tuberculosis.Working with pharmaceutical partners will enable us to look at the full pathway of drug development and investigate how to accelerate the process so that we get effective new drugs to patients as quickly as possible.”

Nick Cammack, Head of the TB Discovery Performance Unit, GSK, said: “The outputs of this project have the potential to dramatically simplify and accelerate the development of new medicines for TB and will be a key set of enabling technologies for industry as we progress early stage assets.”