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Home » Innovations » 0030-01

New therapeutic drug combinations for Tuberculosis treatment

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Start Date: 21/06/2011- End Date: 01/07/2013


Project Lead(s): Santiago Ramón-García

Issue

Hundreds of antibiotics are on the market, but only a few are effective to treat tuberculosis and development of new drugs is a long and expensive process. An alternative approach to generate new TB treatment options in a timely and cost-effective manner is “repurposing”, i.e., identifying new applications for existing, clinically approved drugs with known pharmaceutical properties.

Solution

The laboratory-based project explored whether avermectin drugs, typically used for other diseases, could be effective in treating tuberculosis.

Survival kinetic experiments were done in vitro for ivermectin, selamectin, and moxidectin to measure kill kinetics.

Outcome

Results showed that members of the avermectin family are bactericidal against mycobacterial species, including multi-drug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant clinical strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Selamectin showed the strongest bactericidal profile.

Results were published  in  Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

More than $155,800 was received in grants from the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the British Columbia Lung Association.

Impact and Results

  • Scientific Reports: Repurposing clinically approved cephalosporins for tuberculosis therapy (28/09/2016)
  • University of British Columbia: Antibiotics developed in 1960s show promise for TB therapy (28/09/2016)

Stay in touch with this innovator

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  • Innovation Overview
    Program

    Stars in Global Health

    Institution

    University of British Columbia

    Institution Country

    Canada

    Implementation Country

    None

    Implementation Region

    Sub-Saharan Africa

    Priority

    Infectious Diseases, Malaria, Tuberculosis

    Platform

    Diagnostics

Grand Challenges Canada’s programs are primarily undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada provided through Global Affairs Canada.

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