NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS: WHAT DO PATENTS TELL US

Tuberculosis still is the world’s leading cause of death from a single infectious agent and has affected approximately 10 million people in 2018. The development of new technologies for treating tuberculosis is among the priority goals for the global fight against the disease. The present work makes a technological prospecting from patent documents, aiming to identify new technologies developed for the treatment of the disease, analyzing the most promising trends. The identification of new technologies was carried out through the Orbit Intelligence portal using the sentence: “(+ tuberculosis +) / TI / AB AND (A 61K OR A 61P) / IPC AND PRD> =2015” as a search strategy. We identified 41 patent families with experimental evidence (in vitro / in vivo) of efficacy against Mycobacterium tuberculosis, including resistant strains. The new technologies mainly consist of chemical synthesis products. The patent protection was demanded in countries with promising markets, with potential licensors and strong intellectual property regulations. The use of patents as a source of information can contribute to orientate the development of new drugs for tuberculosis.