Janssen Research & Development, LLC (Janssen) today announced it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking accelerated approval for the use of the investigational drug bedaquiline (TMC207) as an oral treatment, to be used as part of combination therapy for pulmonary, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in adults. If approved by the FDA, bedaquiline would be the first drug with a new mechanism of action for TB in more than 40 years and the first and only one specifically indicated for MDR-TB.
"The emergence of multi-drug resistant strains of TB is a growing problem that impacts people around the world and is posing a significant new treatment challenge in controlling this serious and deadly disease," said Paul Stoffels, Worldwide Chairman, Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson. "Although tuberculosis kills approximately 1.4 million people per year and current therapies do not provide adequate control of resistant strains, there have been no new treatment options to treat TB in the last 40 years. We believe the NDA submission for bedaquiline is an exciting milestone in the development of new TB drugs."
Bedaquiline was discovered by scientists at Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company. Its unique mechanism of action targets adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase, which Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb)--the bacterium that causes tuberculosis--requires to generate its energy.
The regulatory submission is supported by 24-week data from the Phase II clinical development program, which includes an open-label study and a controlled, randomized trial that evaluated the safety and efficacy of bedaquiline versus placebo in the treatment of patients with pulmonary MDR-TB in combination with a background regimen.