Stakeholder meeting on tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections

The objective of the stakeholder meeting on tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections was to assess the current status in the field and to identify the key research areas, current opportunities and barriers to progress.

Participants at the meeting included researchers from academia, representatives of product development partnerships (PDPs) and pharmaceutical industry, policy makers, funding agencies and other like-minded organisations.

Amongst the topics to be discussed were:

• TB diagnostics, in particular for paediatric and latent tuberculosis
• TB vaccines
• TB drugs: testing of novel drugs or drug combinations for treatment of drug-sensitive and multi-drug resistant tuberculosis
• Capacity building and trial site requirements for conducting clinical trials on tuberculosis
• TB co-infections, in particular HIV
• NIDs (Buruli ulcer, leprosy)

Expected outcomes of the meeting

The meeting report was published on the EDCTP website with an open call for comments and feedback from the research community in response to the report. The expected output is a series of recommendations to shape EDCTP strategy for supporting tuberculosis research in the second programme, such as:

• Priority research topics for calls for proposals
• Proposals for development of cooperative projects
• Products in the pipeline for evaluation by EDCTP
• Focused capacity building initiatives
• Proposals for funding partnerships

Background reading material

1. WHO Global TB report 2012
2. Tuberculosis vaccines: a strategic blueprint for the next decade
3. PDP portfolios
4. Research Questions and Priorities for Tuberculosis: A Survey of Published Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PLoS One. 2012; 7(7): e42479. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042479)
5. Clinical Research and Development of Tuberculosis Diagnostics: Moving From Silos to Synergy (Nahid P, Kim PS, Evans CA, et al. Clinical research and development of tuberculosis diagnostics: moving from silos to synergy. J Infect Dis. 2012 May 15;205 Suppl 2:S159–68)
6. Which New Diagnostics for Tuberculosis, and When? (Cobelens, Frank, et al. “Which New Diagnostics for Tuberculosis, and When?.” Journal of Infectious Diseases 205.suppl 2 (2012): S191-S198)
7. Vaccines against Tuberculosis: Where Are We and Where Do We Need to Go? (Ottenhoff THM, Kaufmann SHE (2012) Vaccines against Tuberculosis: Where Are We and Where Do We Need to Go? PLoS Pathog 8(5): e1002607. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1002607)

Presentations

• Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, Director of the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS)
  Opening address
  Download PDF

• Dr Gabrielle Breugelmans, EDCTP North-North Networking Manager
  Plans and Progress towards EDCTP2
  Download PDF

• Professor Gavin Churchyard, Aurum Institute
  Tuberculosis & mycobacterial infections: recent advances and research priorities
  Download PDF

• Dr Catharina Boehme, FIND
  TB Diagnostics: Progress, needs, pipeline
  Download PDF

• Ms Shiva Dustdar, European Investment Bank (EIB)
  EIB Advisory Considerations – Global TB Vaccine Partnership
  Download PDF

• Professor Stefan Kaufmann, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology
  Vaccine Portfolio for TB and Beyond
  Download PDF

• Dr Richard Hafner, National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/NIAID
  Global drugs portfolio innovation in TB therapeutics research
  Download PDF

• Professor Andreas Diacon, Task Applied Science
  Treatment II: Clinical Management of Tuberculosis and Mycobacterial Infections: Tuberculosis
  Download PDF

• Professor Diana Lockwood, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
  Current management of Leprosy
  Download PDF

• Dr Mark Wansbrough-Jones, St George’s, University of London (SGUL)
  Buruli ulcer
  Download PDF

• Dr Christian Lienhardt, WHO Global TB Programme
  Control and implementation research
  Download PDF