Executive Group Meets Face-to-Face in Amsterdam
As preparation for the teleconference that the PanACEA General Assembly will hold in June, the project’s Executive Group met in Amsterdam to discuss its plans, and upcoming deliverables and milestones on May 12th, 2017. The Executive Group met with representatives from Tanzania, South Africa, the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. Collaborations, publications, and capacity development were important topics on the agenda. The Executive Group (EG) usually meets every two weeks through teleconference. This group acts as the supervisory body for the execution of the Project. The EG supervises the good managerial and scientific conduct of the various trials and ensures an optimal allocation of resources. The EG members look forward to share the discussed plans and ideas with the General Assembly on June...
PanACEA II meets in Cape Town
On 7 and 8 March 2017, the PanACEA consortium had their kick-off meeting in the sunny Cape Town in South Africa. A staggering number of 73 people attended the first day of the meeting. Important topics were the trials in the first two work packages, and PanACEA’s governance. Furthermore, time was set out for several partners to showcase scientific projects and give updates on their sites. On Wednesday 8 March the consortium had another full agenda with emphasis on the overarching trial in work package 3, plans for capacity development, and PanACEA’s future. Especially capacity development was a hot topic, resulting in a very vivid discussion. The capacity development plans are located at the core of PanACEA, as the sites are aiming to create an African network of transferring knowledge, expertise, and leadership. PanACEA now occupies itself with the preparation of its first trial, HIGHRIF, starting in July...
16.5 Million Euro for PanACEA II
PanACEA II has been granted 16.5 million euro in their drug development programme to shorten and simplify treatment of tuberculosis. On February 24th 2017, the coordinating team from Radboudumc Nijmegen, Martin Boeree and Rob Aarnoutse, have signed the PanACEA Grant Agreement with Radboudumc’s chairman of the board of directors, Leon van Halder. On February 27th, the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) has countersigned the agreement which results in the project’s official start on March 1st 2017. Rob Aarnoutse, Leon van Halder, and Martin Boeree signing the PanACEA II Grant Agreement Building on PanACEA I, the objectives of PanACEA II are to complete the optimization of existing drugs and to evaluate two novel agents. Combination regimens will be tested that will shorten and simplify treatment for both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant tuberculosis. Trials will be conducted at 11 sites throughout sub-Saharan Africa, empowering African scientists in all aspects of an integrated and comprehensive programme for drug development. The capacity development programme, which stems from PanACEA I, will be...
PanACEA in The Lancet Infectious Diseases
On October 26th, 2016 The Lancet Infectious Diseases published the most recent findings from the multi-arm, multi stage tuberculosis (MAMS-TB) trial of the PanACEA consortium. The MAMS-TB trial investigated four new potential regimens for the treatment of tuberculosis. Trial results show that the highest rifampicin dose tested (35 mg/kg) is safe and reduces the time to culture conversion in liquid media compared to the standard dose (10 mg/kg). The 35 mg/kg dose has promise to progress to phase 3 as an important component of future, shorter regimens to be assessed for improvement of relapse rates. The data bring into question the utility of regimens with relatively low increases in the dose of rifampicin, suggesting that they are not likely to provide significant benefit or treatment shortening. In this light, the results suggest that higher doses than 35 mg/kg should also be evaluated for safety and efficacy. Finally, this is the first time that a multi-arm adaptive trial design was successfully implemented in a multi-centre study in a high tuberculosis...
First Session PanACEA II in Liverpool
The preparations for PanACEA II have been in full swing with a meeting of a large part of the consortium in Liverpool. On October 26th 2016, the international group of partners met again to share thoughts and ideas about the continuation of PanACEA. Several presentations were held, results were shared and organisational issues were discussed....
PanACEA MAMS-TB-01 finds high-dose rifampicin may help shorten TB treatment
Press release – Nijmegen, Netherlands / Munich, Germany February 26th 2015: At the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), PanACEA, the Pan-African Consortium for the Evaluation of Antituberculosis Antibiotics, presented the results of its most recent phase IIb study (MAMS-TB-01). The most exciting finding from the study is that high-dose rifampicin results in faster killing of TB bacilli during treatment, compared to the current standard treatment. The standard WHO-recommended TB treatment regimen (2 months of daily ethambutol, isoniazid, rifampicin and pyrazinamide followed by 4 months of daily isoniazid and rifampicin (2EHRZ/4HR)) involves taking the drugs daily for 6 months. This can make adherence to treatment hard, and has substantial costs to the health system and patients. Shortening the length of time treatment needs to be taken for, may help to reduce the burden on health systems, the costs of treatment, and make treatment easier for patients. PanACEA MAMS-TB-01 was set up to address this. High-dose (35mg/kg) rifampicin, in combination with standard dose of isoniazid, pyrazinamide and ethambutol,...
Final PanACEA I Meeting in Alpbach, Austria
On January 25 – 28 the final PanACEA I meeting was held in Alpbach, Austria. PanACEA members of 11 countries (Belgium, Gabon, Germany, Great Britain, Kenya, Mozambique South Africa, Tanzania, The Netherlands, Uganda, and Zambia) attended the meeting. The newest results of the clinical studies, master and PhD studies and capacity development updates were...
PanACEA in “World TB Day 2014 – Reach the 3 Million”
On March 24, 2014, Michael Hoelscher (LMU) presented “Advances in New TB Drug Development”, Tim McHugh (UCL) “Approaches to Monitoring Therapy” and Patrick Phillips (MRC CTU) “Drug Resistance vs. Drug Sensitive Trials “ at the “World TB Day – Reach the 3 Million” in London (www.who.int/campaigns/tb-day/2014/en). This conference, which was a joint venture between University College London (UCL) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), offered a platform to raise the awareness about the pandemic tuberculosis (TB) worldwide and presents the most current research of TB prevention and control efforts. For a video of the presentations please see...
MAMS STUDY: Enrolment is Now Completed
On March 24 (on World TB Day), the MAMS TB-01 Study has completed enrolment ahead of schedule! We congratulate and thank everybody in achieving this goal prior to the target cut-off date of 31 March 2014. 365 patients have been enrolled in 4 South African and 3 Tanzanian...