PerspectiveFeatureRaising awareness of the importance of funding for tuberculosis small-molecule research

•TB research and development is underfunded by ∼$1.4 bn.•We describe the state of funding small molecule TB research in Europe.•We describe how large TB collaborations and how they could be improved.•We explain the importance of lobbying and crowdfunding to raise funds for TB.•We propose how we might try to keep younger researchers in the field.

Tuberculosis (TB) drug discovery research is hampered by several factors, but as in many research areas, the available funding is insufficient to support the needs of research and development. Recent years have seen various large collaborative efforts involving public-private partnerships, mimicking the situation during the golden age of antibiotic drug discovery during the 1950s and 1960s. The large-scale collaborative efforts funded by the European Union (EU) are now subject to diminishing financial support. As a result, TB researchers are increasingly looking for novel forms of funding, such as crowdfunding, to fill this gap. Any potential solution will require a careful reassessment of the incentives to encourage additional organizations to provide funding.