CHANGE: First Tuberculosis Drug in 40 Years Has Otsuka Cautious.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine today shows Otsuka’s delamanid helped fight tuberculosis strains not stopped by other medications. The Tokyo-based drugmaker, which began seeking treatments for the deadly lung disease in 1982, says it’s drawing up plans to restrict access to select physicians to avoid the bug building resistance.

“We’ve invested a lot of time and money to develop this drug, but we are not seeking robust sales growth immediately,” Masuhiro Yoshitake, Otsuka’s head of tuberculosis projects, said in an interview. “We want to begin selling to people who know how to use the drug.”

Doctors must balance the need to fight hard-to-treat cases against prolonging the medicine’s potency. Taking measures to control delamanid’s use would avoid spoiling the first new promising weapon against TB in 40 years, said Marc Pellegrini, an infectious diseases physician and TB researcher at Melbourne’s Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

I’m just glad there’s something coming out.