New TB drug combo could cut costs, recovery

Kerry Cullinan: Health-e News Service, 23 July 2012

A new Tuberculosis (TB) drug combination could cure TB in record time and cut treatment costs by 90 percent. The New Combination 1 (NC1) study used two new drugs and one old TB drug, testing this on 15 patients in Cape Town, according to the Lancet journal published this week. The principal investigator, Stellenbosch University's Professor Andreas Diacon, said new candidate drugs were usually added to existing drug regimens one at a time over a number of years. But this trial involved combining two new drugs with one old TB drug.

The new combination was twice as strong over the first two weeks of treatment as the current regimen and this was a very good indication that a potent new regimen could be developed with them, said Diacon. If follow-up trials support these results, scientists believe that TB, including some forms of drug-resistant TB, could be cured within four months.

At present, people with multidrug-resistant TB (MDRTB) require about 28 months of treatment, while those with ordinary TB take daily pills for six months. Dr Mel Spigelman, the CEO and TB Alliance president, which spearheaded the new trials, said a new regimen like this held tremendous potential for those with multiple-drug resistant TB. He said their treatment could be reduced by two years or even longer and the regimen also promised to be 90 percent cheaper than the current regimens.

A second trial (New Combination 2) has been launched to test the combination over two months in patients in SA, Tanzania and Brazil. The drugs involved are PA824; moxifloxacin, an antibiotic not yet approved for use in first-line TB therapy; and pyrazinamide, which has been used as an existing TB drug.