Innovative strategies in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis: a patent review (2014–2017)

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease caused due to an infection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M TB) bacilli affecting millions of people worldwide. It is the ninth leading cause of death and ranks above the HIV/AIDS. The unique intracellular life cycle, more dangerous drug-resistant forms of bacilli, and insufficient investments in the TB research and development hindered the occurrence of optimum diagnostic, preventive, and treatment strategy against this disease.

Areas covered: The aim of this review is to provide an update and overview of the current trends in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of the disease. It summarizes a recent patent literature (2014–2017) available on the same.

Expert opinion: Some questions like ‘why most of these inventions do not reach up to the market for public use? Are these inventions being explored only to get a financial return to a particular industry or do they have any societal benefit?’ emphatically come to mind. Together with the efforts taken by various governmental and nongovernmental organizations, a public awareness about the recent advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease is of the highest importance to make ‘the end of TB’ from the universe.

KEYWORDS:

• Tuberculosis
• diagnosis
• treatment
• patent survey

Article highlights

• Tuberculosis (TB), an infection caused due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M TB), is a ninth prime cause of death and ranking above the HIV/AIDS.

• UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and WHO’s End-TB Strategy are aimed at a rapid review of the evidence and to make sure the desired performance standards of new diagnostic methods and drug regimen for eradication of the TB epidemic.

• Present review initially discusses the current barriers in research and development, diagnosis, and treatment of TB. Further, it highlights different initiatives and recent advances in the treatment of TB across the globe.

• This review summarizes various molecular and nonmolecular diagnostic techniques, their applications, and limitations. It briefly discusses the drug regimen suggested by WHO for the treatment of drug-susceptible (further referred as TB) and drug-resistant TB. It also summarizes the list of various repurposed drugs, new drugs, and new drug regimens under investigation and their status of a clinical investigation.

• It provides an overview of the recent patent literature (2014–2017) available on different diagnostic tools and on different innovative methods for the treatment of TB and drug-resistant TB.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This manuscript was not funded.