Alliance to Develop Treatment for Drug-Resistant TB

US and Russian scientists are focusing on an immune-stimulating compound that may lead to an oral treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis. Their progress was announced at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Diego, CA (USA).

In clinical trials, patients treated with the compound showed a marked decrease in the presence of tuberculosis in the lungs. Patients also showed a significant reduction in ailments symptomatic of tuberculosis, such as fever, chest pain, and dry coughing. The compound, called SCV-07, is being developed by biotech company Verta, Ltd. (St. Petersburg, Russia) and SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (San Mateo, CA, USA).

"Verta researchers have been investigating immune-stimulating compounds as a possible treatment for tuberculosis and our Russian partners brought with them an expertise that allowed us to move testing into the clinical stage much faster than would have otherwise been possible,' said Cynthia Tuthill, Ph.D., of SciClone.
Verta was formed in 1993 by a group of former biodefense scientists from the Highly Pure Biopreparations Institute of St.Petersburg, one of the leading Russian research institutes.



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