The report released by Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the Stop TB Partnership has found that cumulative funding for tuberculosis (TB) research and development (R&D) over the past five years is falling shockingly short of commitments. The $4.7 billion funding total reached for the period 2018-2022 is less than half of the $10 billion pledged by world leaders at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB (HLM) in 2018.
Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death globally by an infectious disease, with 1.3 million people dying and 10.6 million falling sick from the disease in 2022 . TB science stands on the precipice of delivering game-changing new tools to eliminate TB, including new vaccines, but development to-date has been severely delayed by ongoing under-investment.
Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends 2005 – 2022, the 18th annual installment of our series assessing the state of TB R&D, is based on a survey of biomedical research funders conducted by TAG with support from Stop TB Partnership. Key findings from the report include:
- Global funding for TB R&D was $1 billion in 2021 and $1.03 billion in 2022 – barely half of the $2 billion annual target agreed at the 2018 HLM.
- Current R&D funding levels are insufficient to produce and roll out the new tools needed to find, treat, and prevent the 10 million new cases of TB each year.
- Spending on TB vaccine R&D was a whopping 80% short of targets set by Stop TB Partnership’s 2018–2022 Global Plan to End TB.
- Funding for drugs and diagnostics lagged behind targets by 75% and 35%, respectively.
- Funding from just two organizations – the United States National Institutes of Health and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – accounted for over half of all expenditures on TB research in 2022.
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