Lupin, TB Alliance parnter for anti-TB drug Pretomanid

"TB Alliance is committed to ensure its products are widely available and affordable to those who need them," said Mel Spigelman, President and CEO, TB Alliance. "Partnering with Lupin, a well-established manufacturer with experience delivering high quality TB therapies, will help further enable widespread access to our novel regimen while promoting a competitive market to drive affordability."

TB, in all forms, must be treated with a combination of drugs; the most drug-sensitive forms of TB are typically treated for six months using four anti-TB drugs. An estimated 1.5 million people died of TB in 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), although the precise numbers are not known and recent research suggests that TB could have killed as much as half a million more people in that same year.

Drug-resistant TB develops when the long, complex, decades-old TB drug regimen is improperly administered, or when people with TB stop taking their medicines before the disease has been fully eradicated from their body—highlighting the urgent need to develop better and shorter treatment regimens. Once a drug-resistant strain has developed, it can be transmitted directly to others through the air, just like drug-sensitive TB. There are over half a million cases of drug-resistant TB each year and its spread undermines efforts to control the TB pandemic.