Products & Pipeline

FIND’s TB product pipeline includes tests for multidrug-resistance

FIND currently collaborates with a number of leading public and private organizations to develop new diagnostic tests. The pipeline includes four products that have gone or are about to go into the demonstration phase. These include Becton Dickinson and Company’s liquid, culture-based diagnostic (MGIT-TB) and MGIT-DST for the detection of drug-resistant TB, alongside Tauns’ Capilia test for TB species identification.

In addition, FIND has recently completed evaluation of a simplified test from Biotec Laboratories that can directly detect rifampicin-resistance from sputum specimens without need for initial culture. The results from this test are obtained in two days rather than the many weeks it takes to diagnose multidrug- resistant TB (MDR-TB) using existing tests.

The demonstration phase for these four tests will be conducted over the next 12 months, and the full dossier of evidence will be submitted thereafter to WHO for consideration for inclusion in policy guidelines for countries most in need of these diagnostics.

Furthermore FIND has introduced molecular amplification technology at the lowest level of the health system for evaluation in several developing country laboratories. The full pipeline for TB includes another 8 projects, with products at different stages of development for all the levels of the health system, including point-of-care assays to be introduced into use within the next 5 years.

Download FIND TB pipeline [pdf 14Kb]