Aspen Pharmacare To Manufacture Drug To Treat XDR-TB

South African pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare on Thursday announced that it plans to begin manufacturing the drug capreomycin to treat extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis -- TB that is resistant to first- and second-line drugs -- Reuters reports. The company by January 2008 plans to produce the drug at its new $42 million manufacturing facility in the South African city of Port Elizabeth, Stavros Nicolaou, the company's senior executive of strategic trade, said. Eli Lilly, the original developer of the drug, has agreed to relinquish intellectual property rights and provide technical expertise. Lilly also has committed $3 million for start-up costs, including equipment. In addition, Aspen has reached an agreement with its counterparts in the U.S. to import capreomycin for distribution in the four most-affected South Africa provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, Northwest, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. The company said it began producing another second-line drug, called cycloserine, 18 months ago at a local plant and plans to increase capacity to manufacture four billion capsules annually (Reuters, 11/30).