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U.S. regulators Wednesday approved a new tuberculosis medicine that shortens and improves treatment for the hardest-to-treat cases, a worsening problem in many poor countries. It’s the first TB drug from a nonprofit group, the TB Alliance. Formed to come up with better treatments, the group developed pretomanid with help from charities and government agencies. The pill was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use with two other antibiotics. Decades of incomplete or ineffective treatment has resulted in TB strains that have become drug resistant and aren’t killed by long-standard medicines. (Johnson, 8/14)

On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration effectively endorsed the approach, approving the newest of the three drugs used in the regimen. Usually, the World Health Organization adopts approvals made by the F.D.A. or its European counterpart, meaning the treatment could soon come into use worldwide. Tuberculosis has now surpassed AIDS as the world’s leading infectious cause of death, and the so-called XDR strain is the ultimate in lethality. It is resistant to all four families of antibiotics typically used to fight the disease. (McNeil Jr., 8/14)

Some researchers hope TB Alliance can serve as a model for antibiotic drug development as health authorities warn about the growing danger of drug-resistant infections. The United Nations has projected such infections could cause 10 million deaths each year by 2050 if nothing is done. (Abutaleb, 8/14)

Developing new, more effective treatments has been a priority of public-health authorities alarmed by the rise of versions resistant to current antibiotics. One barrier has been a lack of interest from many for-profit drugmakers, partly because of the limited commercial market for such drugs. The FDA cleared Pretomanid using a relatively new pathway established under a 2016 federal law to spur the development of new antibiotics and antifungal drugs for infections that lack effective treatment. (McKay, 8/14)