PanACEA 2: New TB drug tested in patients for the first time in South Africa
The new promising tuberculosis drug BTZ-043 has been administered to patients for the first time in Cape Town, South Africa. This clinical study which is led by Professor Michael Hoelscher of the Tropical Institute at the Hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) Munich, is part of the PanACEA 2 consortium (Pan-African Consortium for the Evaluation of Antituberculosis Antibiotics) Coordinated by the Radboud University Medical Centre (RadboudUMC), Nijmegen.
BTZ-043 was discovered at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology – Hans Knöll Institute (Leibniz-HKI) in Jena. Since 2014, the new chemical entity has been developed in a consortium of scientists from the Leibniz-HKI and the Tropical Institute at the Hospital of the LMU Munich within the framework of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF).
The study is funded by EDCTP and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
The PanACEA 2 consortium aims to aims to develop at least two promising TB-treatment regimens with sound prediction data for a successful phase III evaluation, and advance one new agent into phase IIB. It is taking full advantage of state-of-the-art technologies, including innovative trial designs, new microbiological markers of treatment response, pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic analyses and modelling techniques. As a result, drug development processes are accelerated by several years. PanACEA2 trial activities are conducted at 11 research sites in six countries (Gabon, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda) in sub-Saharan Africa with integrated research capacity development.