PBS News Hour
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a new tuberculosis antibiotic this month could be a significant win not only for TB patients, but for a burgeoning nonprofit model for developing prescription drugs.
Please see link for entire article, but in essence this is important for a number of reasons:
- The new drug, pretomanid, developed by the nonprofit TB Alliance, achieved a 90% success rate among patients with highly drug-resistant forms of TB who took the antibiotic as part of a three-drug, all-oral regimen over a six month period.
- Some LLMD’s are using tuberculosis drugs successfully in refractory Lyme/MSIDS patients
- Evidently there has been a pharmaceutical exodus from the antibiotic business due to lack of economic incentive
- Pharmaceutical funding has shifted toward drugs that will yield more money such as cancer drugs, because drugs for chronic illnesses are immediately put to use and taken for long periods of time
- According to some, the only sustainable model for antibiotics are nonprofits with endowments. Endowments cover basic operational costs and allow for a lengthy and tedious discovery process for antibiotics and drugs that are needed but aren’t profitable
- Nonprofits; however, cut costs by having a reduced staff without laboratories, requiring them to partner with other labs, academic institutions, or research organizations as well as develop relationships with for-profit companies for toxicology, chemical combinations and dosages, and the actual manufacturing of the drugs.
Madison Area Lyme Support Group 