No Time to Wait - TB Symposium NY - Symposium summary

“Diagnosing and treating TB is one of the greatest challenges facing health care providers around the world,” said Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer, the Director of MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign. “The urgency for new tools could not be greater – there is no time to wait.”

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, with the support of Howard Milstein and Weill Cornell Medical College, convened the symposium No Time to Wait: Overcoming the Gaps in TB Drug Development in New York on 11-12 January 2007. Aimed at stimulating efforts to accelerate the development of effective new treatments for tuberculosis (TB), the symposium brought together more than 100 experts from around the world, including drug developers, clinical researchers, health professionals, policy makers, donors, and activists. Plenary and workshop participants discussed the inadequacy of current approaches and concrete proposals to accelerate the development of effective new treatments. These included mechanisms to stimulate basic and translational research, the expansion of global TB clinical trial capacity, and the need for serious consideration of new approaches to prioritize and fund essential medical R&D such as a global R&D treaty currently being discussed at the WHO. Participants agreed that overcoming the gaps in TB drug development requires global TB R&D leadership and a significant increase in funding. The following is a summary of key issues and recommendations arising from the conference.