Drug partnerships and global practices

Tuberculosis poses one of the biggest threats to individuals living with HIV in most low-income regions of the world, and the increase of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in South Africa, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere makes this threat that much more critical. Despite the extent of the problem, new drugs for tuberculosis have not been developed for over four decades, largely because tuberculosis occurs primarily among the poor in low-income regions and the market for tuberculosis drugs is not lucrative enough to warrant time and resource commitments by pharmaceutical companies. In the wake of sustained global criticism of pharmaceutical-state practices, however, new partnerships for drug development (PDPs) are forming to address critical shortages of drugs for diseases like tuberculosis that have been termed 'neglected' precisely because they have not seen new treatments for so long. This paper examines some of these partnerships, tracing some of the dynamic developments as well as challenges in forging alternative pathways to new drug and vaccine production.