TB Alliance Sublicenses Promising Tuberculosis Drug ‘Sutezolid'

The license agreement announced on the World Tuberculosis Day comes in an effort to fight multidrug-resistant tuberculosis with an effective drug called sutezolid.

On the World Tuberculosis Day, TB Alliance and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announced a licensing agreement for the clinical development of sutezolid, an antibiotic drug that showed promising results in earlier studies.

The sublicense pertains to the development of sutezolid in combination with other TB drugs and is a follow-up of the MPP’s license for the treatment, signed in January with patent holder Johns Hopkins University

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Tuberculosis, a contagious bacterial infection of the lungs, is one of the world's most deadly diseases, that killed over 1.5 million people in 2013.

‘Sutezolid is an anti-tuberculosis drug, which has shown promising results in clinical studies. Sutezolid can effectively treat both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis.’

“There are precious few novel drugs available for TB therapy and therefore every promising new candidate is greeted with much enthusiasm,” said Dr. Mel Spigelman, President and CEO of TB Alliance.

“With the additional positive results from our current clinical trials we can thoroughly vet sutezolid in a variety of potentially transformative new TB regimens.”

Sutezolid
Sutezolid belongs to the same class of drugs as linezolid (oxazolidinones), which is used to treat drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) in some countries. According to the tests conducted over the past decade, sutezolid may have a better therapeutic potential than linezolid.

Private Market for Tuberculosis Drugs
It is quite clear that tuberculosis (TB) is widely considered a public health concern and its treatment a public sector responsibility.

“Sutezolid is the first TB drug in the Medicines Patent Pool’s portfolio, and we are pleased with TB Alliance’s swiftness in sublicensing the candidate,” said Greg Perry, Executive Director of the Medicines Patent Pool.

"We are grateful to the civil society coalition that pushed for the clinical development of sutezolid. If further studies are successful, this product could be a game-changer in improving options for patients.”

Overcoming Tuberculosis Drug Resistance
The exceptional drug resistance displayed by the TB-causing agent, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, means that tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a global health problem.

MPP’s license with Johns Hopkins University grants the MPP the rights to sublicense sutezolid to product developers interested in further developing the treatment for both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB, and to combine sutezolid with a wide variety of other TB drugs.

TB is the world’s leading infectious disease killer. In 2015, about 10.4 million people were newly diagnosed with TB and 1.8 million died from the disease, according to the World Health Organization. An estimated 580,000 patients were deemed eligible for MDR-TB treatment in 2015. The success rate of MDR-TB treatment is only 52 percent.

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“UNITAID strongly supports the TB Alliance-Medicines Patent Pool collaboration to jump-start the clinical development of the new tuberculosis treatment sutezolid,” said Lelio Marmora, Executive Director of UNITAID, the MPP’s funder. “This World Tuberculosis Day, we must re-double efforts to find better, faster-acting treatment solutions, especially for resistant forms of the disease.”

Source-Medindia