On Friday, Chiron Corp. announced it had agreed to license rights for an experimental compound to a nonprofit group dedicated to developing new tuberculosis drugs.
The biotechnology company may make and market medicines that come out of the research by the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. The agreement is the first of its kind between a nonprofit agency and a for-profit business, the alliance said.
Tuberculosis kills 2 million people each year, making it the greatest single infectious cause of death. Existing medicines for the disease are more than 30 years old. The high cost of research and small profit potential in markets where TB is common have discouraged companies from developing new treatments, said the alliance, which will work on Chiron's experimental drug, called PA-824, and related compounds.