Emerging drugs for active tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis (TB) drug research and development lay largely fallow from the 1960s to the turn of the century. A realization that current treatments for this major public health epidemic are proving inadequate to control the disease and prevent development and spread of drug resistance has stimulated renewed activity during the past 5 to 10 years. As a result, there are now seven drugs in clinical development for TB and many groups working on discovery-stage projects. This article summarizes the published information available on the seven clinical candidates and describes some of the challenges faced by those pursuing research and development of novel TB therapies.