2002 MAR 8 - Chiron Corporation (CHIR) and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development have agreed to license terms for the development of PA-824 as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB).
Under the terms of the agreement, the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, a public-private partnership created in 2000, obtains the exclusive worldwide license of PA-824 and related compounds for the development of a new drug to treat tuberculosis.
Dr. Maria C. Freire, CEO of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, said, "PA-824 is the first of several promising new drug candidates we have under negotiation for further development, to ensure that innovative technologies reach patients who need new medicines."
The announcement coincides with the release of the World Health Organization's (WHO) report "Scaling Up the Response to Infectious Diseases," which highlights new ways of doing business to help control TB, AIDS, and malaria, including novel approaches to the development of new therapeutics.
"This agreement is an excellent case study that perfectly embodies our report," said Dr. Gro Brundtland, director-general of the WHO. "Chiron and the TB Alliance are illustrating in real terms how industry can be a full partner in developing new therapeutics to fight diseases of poverty, thereby unlocking critical economic opportunities for everyone."
The agreement is the first such arrangement between a private company and a nonprofit for a new compound that could treat tuberculosis, which infects one third of the world's population, but is still treated with drugs discovered up to 50 years ago.
PA-824 is a novel lead compound related to nitroimidazoles, a family of compounds used to treat a range of infections. PA-824 has already demonstrated in vitro activity against both drug-sensitive and multidrug resistant strains of TB. Early research into PA-824 has highlighted important properties that may have the potential to permit significant reduction in the duration of TB treatment from its present course of 6-9 months.
"There was great excitement among the TB and scientific communities when the first scientific report on PA-824 came out in June 2000," said Dr. Rick O'Brien, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's Division of TB Elimination. "With this agreement, the TB Alliance can leverage resources to further assess the real potential PA-824 holds for significantly improving the treatment of TB patients worldwide."
TB is a highly contagious, airborne disease that attacks the respiratory system and is presently treated with a 4-drug combination that imposes a lengthy 6- to 9-month treatment course. TB kills 2 million people each year and now is the number one cause of death of people with HIV infection. Moreover, among the more than 8 million new TB cases identified each year, multidrug-resistant strains are on the rise. New treatments are necessary to combat the tuberculosis epidemic, because no new class of drugs has been developed in 30 years.
Treatment regimens imposed by currently approved drugs are long and cumbersome and fail to treat resistant strains. "The Alliance is proving that real hope for new treatments of tuberculosis exists," said Carlos Morel, chairman of the Board of the TB Alliance and director of WHO's Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR). "When we lose someone to TB every 15 seconds, the urgency to find novel treatments to fight tuberculosis can not be overstated. With access to Chiron's PA-824 program, we can envision the possibility of developing new drugs to make serious inroads in this deadly epidemic."