New TB drug shows excellent promise - AIDS Conference 2012

A new drug for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) has performed very well in a clinical trial.
The drug, PA-824, was taken in combination with the antibiotic moxifloxacin and the anti-TB drug pyrazinamide.
In a randomised study lasting 14 days, the PA-824-containing regimen had better antibacterial activity than five other arms, one of which involved therapy with standard TB treatment.
The PA-824-containing regimen is expected to work against both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB. It is hoped that use of the drug could reduce the length of treatment for multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) by up to a year.
Importantly, the combination is unlikely to have any significant interactions with HIV therapy.
“The regimen of PA-824 plus moxifloxacin plus pyrazinamide has really very dramatic improvement over a number of other combinations,” said researchers.

During two weeks of treatment, the combination killed 99% of TB bacteria.