EU to organize seminar on development of new medicines for tuberculosis

The European Union (EU) said Friday that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) would organize a seminar on the development of new medicines to treat tuberculosis (TB) at EMA's premises in London on Nov. 25.

The event is part of the consultation process on the revision of EMA's guidance for the development of new treatments for tuberculosis. Representatives from patient and health care professional organisations, academia, regulatory bodies and the pharmaceutical industry will discuss the updated draft requirements as part of the public consultation.

Today's existing treatments for multidrug drug-resistant TB are not always very effective, imposing a heavy burden on patients, who often have only very limited health care systems to support them. New TB medicines that are simpler to administer, are of shorter duration, and can overcome drug resistance are urgently needed.

TB is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In the World Health Organisation's (WHO) European region, approximately 340,000 people were newly diagnosed with TB and 33,000 died from the disease in 2014, mostly in Eastern and Central European countries. Endit