Dedicated TB Research

We continue to apply our skills and resources in infection research to finding a new, improved treatment for TB - one of the greatest disease challenges the developing world faces today.

TB is one of the leading causes of death from infectious disease worldwide, claiming over 5,000 lives every day – more than ever before. Existing TB therapies are effective but treatment regimes are complicated and prolonged, which means patients may give up treatment once the symptoms are no longer apparent but before the infection is fully treated. This may lead to relapse and makes drug resistance more likely.

To enhance our ability to participate in the global effort to identify new therapies for TB, in 2003 we opened a $20 million purpose-built, state-of-the-art, dedicated TB research centre at our Bangalore site in India.

We continue to invest over $5 million each year in this research effort and today have over 80 scientists working in Bangalore. They have full access to all AstraZeneca’s platform technologies such as high-throughput screening and compound libraries and they work closely with our infection research centre in Boston, Massachusetts, US, as well as with external academic leaders to ensure we capture best practice in this field.

We are focused on finding a new, improved treatment for TB that will act on drug-resistant strains, simplify the treatment regime and be compatible with HIV/AIDS therapies (TB and HIV/AIDS form a lethal combination, each speeding the other’s progress).

As their experience in this challenging area of research expands, our scientists are increasingly able to make swifter, better decisions to maintain a focus on the highest-quality, highest-potential new molecules. However, our determination to progress only the best opportunities, coupled with our growing understanding of the requirements for an effective agent, means we have set very high hurdles for development candidates – which has had an impact on our timelines. We had hoped to have a candidate drug (CD) for introduction into human studies during 2007/2008, but the stringent criteria that we have set to meet the medical need within this complex area of research means that our current programmes are some two to three years away from CD delivery. Our KPI in this area is delivery not earlier than 2010. Backed by their ever-increasing knowledge, our scientists continue to drive progress of these programmes and build a robust portfolio of compounds with high potential to deliver significant advances in the treatment of TB.

Once a candidate drug is found, we expect to establish a route for its development in consultation with regulatory authorities and external experts such as the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. We will apply for patent protection in the normal way and we will seek partnership arrangements with the appropriate global and local organisations to make treatment available, whether at affordable prices or through other routes to those who need it in developing countries.

During 2008, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, already one of the world's leading funders of TB research, increased its commitment by $280 million under the Gates Foundation TB Drug Accelerator initiative.  AstraZeneca is one of the recipients of the funding, spread across nine grants totalling $18 million to individual research institutions for early-stage TB drug discovery projects. As part of this, a collaborative grant of $1.7 million was awarded to AstraZeneca India and a senior scientist from the Ordway Research Institute in Albany, US for a programme to define how pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) studies can best inform future drug development decision-making for the treatment of TB using existing therapeutic agents and combinations thereof. PK-PD is the science that describes the relationship between drug concentrations and the compound’s pharmacological or toxicological effects.  If successful, this programme will deliver a PK-PD platform for the evaluation of new TB drugs and drug regime.

The content of this page was externally assured by Bureau Veritas, February 2009.