Researchers have uncovered a new way that some bacteria survive when under siege by antibiotics.

Date: 18 January 2013
Time: 8h45 - 15h00
Location: 455 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20001, USA

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 2, 2013 – The presence of a certain molecule allows the immune system to effectively police tuberculosis (TB) of the lungs and prevent it from turning into an active and deadly infection, according to a new study led by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings appear today in the online version of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

NEW YORK/GENEVA – 31 December 2012 - Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) welcomed the approval by the US Food and Drug Administration of bedaquiline, the first new drug active against tuberculosis (TB) to be registered since 1963.

December 28, 2012--Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved bedaquiline as the first new drug for tuberculosis (TB) in 40 years. This important news comes at a time when the incidence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB is growing worldwide and public health officials are in desperate need of better drugs to contain the most dangerous strains.

Stringency urged in requiring follow-up studies to ensure safety

On Dec. 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Sirturo (bedaquiline) as part of combination therapy to treat adults with multi-drug resistant pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) when other alternatives are not available.

SIRTURO™ was discovered by researchers at Janssen and is currently under review by three regulatory bodies including the European Medicines Agency (EU), State Food and Drug Administration (China) and Medicines Control Council (South Africa).

TARTU, Estonia—All along the edges of Western Europe, new and hard-to-defeat strains of tuberculosis are gaining a foothold, often moving beyond traditional victims—alcoholics, drug users, HIV patients—and into the wider population.

Aggressive treatment of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) significantly reduces the risk of disease recurrence, investigators report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Patients who received intensive therapy for at least 18 months after cure were 60% less likely to have disease recurrence than patients who received less aggressive therapy.