New J&J drug hits 'off switch' on TB

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New J&J drug hits 'off switch' on TB
Compound blocks energy for killer disease
Friday, December 10, 2004
BY KITTA MacPHERSON,Star-Ledger Staff

For the first time in nearly 40 years, scientists have produced a drug that in lab tests appears to cure tuberculosis, a disease that is one of the world's worst killers.

The antibiotic, called R207910, was developed by a team of Johnson & Johnson scientists who worked quietly on the project for a decade in locales ranging from Raritan, N.J., to Beerse, Belgium.

They unveiled the patented work last night in an electronic edition of Science magazine. The compound, which appears to work better and faster than existing treatments, acts like a switch to cut off the energy supply of the mycobacterium that causes tuberculosis.

"This is dynamite stuff," said Lee Reichman, executive director of the New Jersey Medical School National Tuberculosis Center in Newark. In his 2002 book, "Timebomb," which details the early 1990s global resurgence of killer TB strains, Reichman castigated the pharmaceutical industry for ignoring the disease and failing to develop new treatments.

"I admire J&J for doing this kind of research," Reichman said. "This has phenomenal potential."