Cape Town - A new trial involving a novel Tuberculosis (TB) drug could see the reduction of treatment from the current six months to four.
A novel TB drug candidate used in the trial was highlighted during a recent visit by the Bavarian State Chancellery and the Western Cape Government to the University of Cape Town’s Lung Institute (UCTLI).
There were also plans to test BTZ-043 (benzothiazinone DprE1 blocker) in combination with two other new TB drug candidates.
The new drug regimen could see the treatment reduced from six months to four.
Drug-resistant pathogens have made efforts to combat TB challenging as it renders existing TB antibiotics ineffective.
UCTLI managing director, professor Rodney Dawson, said the development of new drug candidates is critical, along with better diagnostics and TB vaccine development.
BTZ-043 was profiled in an early phase development study at the UCTLI and will continually assess its efficacy in combination with Bedaquiline and Delamanid, two other new TB drugs recently registered for use in multidrug-resistant TB.
Four different combination doses will be given to trial participants over four months.
BTZ-043 was discovered at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology at the Hans Knöll Institute, Jena, in 2006.
If successful, these drugs may form part of UNITE4TB’s stable of novel TB drugs that will be assessed in combination studies across 15 global study sites, including Cape Town.
Dawson said within three months of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a massive mobilisation of global medical and research energy towards finding a solution, resulting in new Covid-19 diagnostics, a new PCR test, and new Covid-19 treatments, followed by the development of Covid-19 vaccines, all within a year.
“We’re quite frustrated in TB circles because we’ve been working on finding a TB vaccine for the past 10 to 15 years,” Dawson said.
In South Africa and many other developing countries with a high prevalence of TB, many of the treatment challenges lie in the way TB presents itself. It is an indolent disease of poverty, Dawson said.
“Patients die quietly at home, out of sight, in rural areas. Ninety-eight percent of TB deaths are in marginalised communities where resources are few, socio-economic conditions are poor and levels of violence high.”
The development study for the BTZ-043 Cape Town study was funded by the Bavarian Government and PanACEA.