TB Alliance Picks InnoCentive Solvers

The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, has awarded $20,000 each to two individuals, one in India and the other in China, who came up with more efficient processes for manufacturing the tuberculosis drug candidate PA-824. The nonprofit partnership had posted its challenge on InnoCentive, the online network where scientists can find scientific problems to solve. Selected from among 27 proposals, the winning methods could shorten the synthesis of PA-824, now in Phase II clinical trials, from five steps to three and may eliminate a reactant known to be a skin and eye irritant.