Tuberculosis Drug Development: History and Evolution of the Mechanism-Based Paradigm

Abstract

Modern tuberculosis (TB) chemotherapy is widely viewed as a crowning triumph of anti-infectives research. However, only one new TB drug has entered clinical practice in the past 40 years while drug resistance threatens to further destabilize the pandemic. Here, we review a brief history of TB drug development, focusing on the evolution of mechanism(s)-of-action studies and key conceptual barriers to rational, mechanism-based drugs.

Copyright © 2015 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; all rights reserved.

Figures

Figure 1.

Antitubercular compounds.