TB treatment consortium PanACEA2 held second annual meeting
The EDCTP-funded PanACEA2 consortium held its second annual meeting in Cape Town, South Africa from 28 February to 1 March 2018. Over the next five years, the consortium plans to use novel trial designs to accelerate the development of new anti-tuberculosis drug regimens. Three clinical trials will be conducted to optimise existing drugs and evaluate novel agents, with the aim of testing combination regimens that will shorten and simplify TB treatment. EDCTP Senior Project Officer Dr Monique Rijks-Surette participated in the programme.
During the meeting, the PanACEA consortium discussed the progress of the three clinical trials, one of which is already recruiting volunteers in South Africa. Importantly, members of the consortium have formed expertise ‘cores’ in areas such as microbiology, statistics and biomarkers, amongst others. The goal of these expertise cores is to build skills so that clinical trial sites are better equipped to run (future) trials, with the ultimate aim to transfer knowledge and leadership to the African sites.
“I am pleased that one of the outcomes of this annual meeting was seeing an increased participation from our African consortium members. One of PanACEA consortium's cornerstones is striving for partnership through active participation.”
Prof. Martin Boeree, PanACEA2 coordinator, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
The EDCTP grant to the consortium of almost €11.4 million is part of a total investment in TB research of currently €78.84 million. The consortium is confident that their grant will result in at least two promising regimens with sound prediction data for a successful phase III evaluation. Its innovative approach will lessen the risk of future investment and accelerate drug development by several years.
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