Claiming the lives of nearly 1.4 million people globally in 2010, tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as the greatest killer due to a single infectious agent. And while TB, a contagious bacterial disease whose greatest damage is generally done to the lungs, is curable, standard anti-TB drug regimens require long treatment durations at least six months, which often becomes a therapeutic barrier.
But exciting results from an early-stage clinical trial, presented at the 2012 International AIDS Conference and published inThe Lancet, found that PaMZ, a new three-drug combination, can kill more than 99 percent of the TB microorganisms within just two weeks of use. Developed by researchers from the non-profit TB Alliance, PaMZ consists of a novel drug candidate, an established antibiotic not yet approved for use in first-line TB therapy, and an existing TB drug. Pre-clinical data suggest that the therapy could treat drug-sensitive TB as well as some forms of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) in just four months that s a vast improvement compared to the current treatment regimens, which can take up to 24 months.
In addition to reducing treatment time, PaMZ is less expensive (it can reduce the cost of MDR-TB therapy by as much as 90 percent), and it eliminates the need for injectables.
Called NC-001, The Lancet study was a two-week trial of PaMZ completed at two centers in South Africa. A second trial NC-002 is currently underway and is testing the drug over a two month period at eight sites in South Africa, Tanzania, and Brazil.
Treating drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB with the same regimen can simplify the delivery of TB treatment worldwide, said lead author Dr. Andreas Diacon. The results of this study give healthcare providers on the front lines of the TB epidemic hope for better, faster tools needed to stop this disease.
And because TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV causing one quarter of all deaths it s vital to develop better treatment options. Keeping patients on six months of typical TB treatment is quite challenging, even in the U.S., much more so in Africa, says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. And if patients don t complete the full course of therapy, more and harder to treat resistant strains of TB will spring up, which is why I believe the results of this preliminary PaMZ trial have great potential for solving this problem moving forward.
The key to this therapy is the addition of a new antibiotic called PA-824, says ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom, which serves as a perfect example of the importance of antibiotic research for human health.