Sanofi, TB Alliance to collaborate on tuberculosis drugs

NEW YORK — French drug maker Sanofi announced a deal with the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development to develop drugs for tuberculosis.

The drug maker and the TB Alliance said the deal will include discovery and development of new drug compounds for the disease, which caused almost 1.5 million deaths globally and affected nearly 9 million in 2010, according to the World Health Organization.

Under the agreement, the two will work on several new compounds in Sanofi's library that have shown effectiveness against the bacterium that causes TB, known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This will include in-depth research of lead compounds and the chemical optimization of compounds that have been identified as hits through high-throughput screening. 

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