TB Alliance announced today that pretomanid (pronounced: pree TOH mah nid) will be the generic, nonproprietary name for its novel anti-bacterial drug compound, PA-824, following a review by the United States Adopted Names Council and the International Nonproprietary Names program of the World Health Organization. Pretomanid is a component of being tested by TB Alliance for their ability to transform TB therapy, as well as future planned trials.
Pretomand will continue to be referred to as “Pa” in regimen abbreviations, such as BPaMZ. The “preto” prefix of the compound’s name honors Pretoria, South Africa, the home of a TB Alliance clinical development office where much of the drug’s development took place. The “manid” suffix is used to group compounds with similar chemical structures.
About pretomanid
Pretomanid is a nitroimidazole, a class of novel anti-bacterial agents. As a potential TB therapy, it has many attractive characteristics - most notably its novel mechanism of action, its activity in vitro against all tested drug-resistant clinical isolates, and its activity as both a potent bactericidal and a sterilizing agent in mice. In addition, the compound shows no evidence of mutagenicity in a standard battery of genotoxicity studies, no significant cytochrome P450 interactions, and no significant activity against a broad range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. This compound has been developed by TB Alliance and is a potential cornerstone of future TB and drug-resistant TB treatment regimens.