Japan Lab Strikes At Tuberculosis Scourge, May Beat J&j, Glaxo
In 1982, when tuberculosis was under control in developed nations, Ishikawa, a researcher at Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. in southwest Japan, began looking for new ways to attack the bacterium plaguing poor nations in Asia. The result is OPC- 67683, the first new drug against TB in more than 40 years and one of the three most advanced in development worldwide.
Ishikawas success comes at a time when drug-evading bacteria are transforming an infectious disease that could be treated with $20 worth of medication into an unstoppable scourge. As tuberculosis once again becomes a global threat, Ishikawa, a 62-year-old chemist, has been joined in the fight by drugmakers Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca Plc, which also are developing new TB medicines.
“Were really desperate for some better drugs,” said Tido Von Schoen Angerer, who heads aid group Medecins Sans Frontieress Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines in Geneva. “We are paying the price for decades of neglect. People are dying.”
A more effective pill may bring $400 million in annual sales, according to Sequella Inc., which is developing medicines and tests for TB in Rockville, Maryland. Since the World Health Organization in Geneva declared the disease “a global emergency” in 1993, more than 40 drugs have entered development.
Partial View
Otsukas medicine is in the second of three stages of tests required for regulatory review. Two other compounds are as well: TMC207 from the Tibotec unit of New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson; and PA-824, which a company now owned by Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG licensed to the TB Alliance, a New York-based non-profit group supported by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations. Glaxo and AstraZeneca have medicines in earlier stages of research.
“I think we are the front runner,” Ishikawa said. Pamela Van Houten, a Tibotec spokeswoman, said J&Js drug candidate is also in the second of three stages of human testing and declined to compare the product to Otsukas.
“It is a stark contrast to what we had at the end of the 1990s,” said Paul Nunn, coordinator of the TB and HIV drug- resistance unit with WHOs Stop TB Department.
“In the rich world, where all the pharmaceutical companies are, TB was not seen as much of a problem after the 1970s because it was felt that we had very effective treatment, which was perfectly true,” he said. “There was a complete failure to understand the true extent of the burden in developing countries.”
So Long
Tuberculosis epidemics were continuing in China, Indonesia and Thailand, where Tokyo-based Otsuka built factories in the 1970s and 80s. Ishikawa said it was these patients he was trying to serve.
“It was something the rest of the world wasnt doing,” said Ishikawa. “There were times when management questioned the point. Weve been at this for so long and put so much of ourselves into it, we didnt want to give up.”
Health leaders and ministers start a three-day meeting in Beijing today organized by the World Health Organization, Chinas health ministry and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to galvanize action against the new TB strains.
HIVs Role
About 40,000 people develop extensively drug-resistant, or XDR, tuberculosis annually, according to WHO. By late 2008, 55 countries and territories had at least one XDR case, threatening to derail a decade of progress in tuberculosis control, the Geneva-based agency said in a report last week.
Tuberculosis became possible to cure in the mid 1940s with the discovery of the antibiotic streptomycin. Almost all the drugs used to fight it were found in the next two decades. Their effectiveness has been hampered by HIV. TB can flourish in HIV sufferers because the AIDS-causing virus attacks T-cells, the bodys immune defenders crucial in keeping tuberculosis at bay.
Toxic and Expensive
WHO estimates 9.27 million new tuberculosis cases occurred in 2007, up from 8 million a decade earlier. The disease kills almost 2 million people a year.