The coalition of public and private institutions, including WHO, which has organized this meeting, has carefully analyzed the reasons for the lack of progress and believes they can now be addressed. First, WHO is declaring that with only the existing drugs against TB there is an unmet need. Second, the coalition is analyzing the needs and developing new ideas, such as those that led to the Medicines for Malaria Venture within TDR, and developed it as an independent virtual pharmaceutical company. Already, public sector investment has let to new understanding of the cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis . The capacity to undertake large-scale clinical TB trials in the public sector is being restored and the Wellcome Trust has sequenced the genome of the tuberculosis bacillus.
New opportunities are there.
We believe the time is right to act. Investing in new anti-TB drugs is investing to reduce poverty. This is the goal of international development and I pledge the support of WHO in this work. I wish you a successful and very productive meeting. The Johns Hopkins University on behalf of its Division of Infectious Diseases.