Newsletter

Issue 9:

April 2025

ERA4TB researchers win prestigious award for innovation

On the 28th November 2024, researchers from the University of Zaragoza, were presented with a Quality Innovation Award in the category of ‘innovation with potential’ by the Spanish edition of the Quality Innovation awards.

The award was for their work implementing the Hollow Fibre System within ERA4TB. The Hollow Fibre System is a pre-clinical model to study how drugs behave in the body. The system allows important information on the pharmacokinetic (PK)–pharmacodynamic (PD) attributes of antimicrobials to be understood.

It has since been announced that the team at the University of Zaragoza have also been awarded the international quality innovation award in the Category of Potential Innovation. They are one of 23 participants being recognised out of 557 innovations at the international awards.

For more information on the Hollow Fibre System, read this article by the ERA4TB consortium

Centros de Excelencia staff (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – CSIC) at the Quality Innovation Award Ceremony

ERA4TB to host public keynote speeches at annual consortium meeting

We are pleased to announce that the keynote speeches at our annual project meeting will be open to public observers. On the 20 May we will hear from Professor Stewart Cole from the Institut Pasteur on the topic of antimicrobial resistance and Marco Cavaleri from the European Medicines Agency who will discuss key regulatory issues related to antimicrobials. On 21 May, our speakers, Ann Ginsberg from the Gates Foundation and Carlos Martin from the University of Zaragoza, will explore the topic of tuberculosis vaccinations.

Celebrating International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is celebrated on the 8th March annually. As part of this year’s celebrations, we wanted to highlight some of the incredible women, who are involved in the ERA4TB project. Consortium members from across different organisations have been telling us why they feel it is important for women to be involved in TB and drug development research.
Read the blog articles on our website:

Deborah Recchia Post-Doc Researcher at University of Pavia (Department of Biology and Biotechnology “L. Spallanzani”) Interview

Anna Upton SVP Infectious Diseases, Evotec Interview

Hala Mansour Post-Doc at Institut Pasteur de Lille, France, in work package 2 working now mainly on DDU384 and EUCAST experiments Interview

Christine Roubert Principal Scientist (Evotec) Interview

Lara Visuña Pérez Predoctoral researcher (UC3M) Interview

Exploring the role of health economics in TB treatment development

This year ERA4TB are hosting a series of webinars focusing on the role of health economics in tuberculosis drug development and access. The first webinar took place on 9th April 2025 and looked at the cost of treating tuberculosis. Health economic experts from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine discussed how we examine the cost burden of treating a disease like TB and how the role of health economics in setting priorities for new TB treatment development.

A second webinar, to be held in July 2025, will explain how the UK’s antimicrobial subscription model has progressed since its launch. A final webinar expected to be held in October 2025 will explore how results from early phase research can inform health economic modelling. Details of these upcoming webinars will be posted on the ERA4TB social media channels.

ERA4TB holds Drug Development workshop at major lung health conference 2024

On the 12th November 2024, ERA4TB members held a cross-project workshop at the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease’s Conference. The workshop “TB Drug Regimens Development School: Advanced Preclinical and Translational tools within the Public-Private ERA4TB consortium hub” involved speakers from Universidad de Zaragoza, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Research Center Borstel, CEA, Farmacología Clínica Hospital Universitario La Paz and Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute.

Submissions for 2025’ Union Conference to be held in Copenhagen are now open.

New ERA4TB publication

In March 2025, ERA4TB consortium members published a new article describing the protocol ‘to quantify bacterial burden in time-kill assays using colony-forming units and most probable number readouts for Mycobacterium tuberculosis’

ERA4TB Portfolio Status

Overview of ERA4TB Asset Progression Plans (APPs). At present, 11 different molecules are being progressed, with a further 3 planned for incorporation into the ERA4TB pipeline in 2025. In-vivo, in-vitro, preclinical development activities and First-in-Human studies are being undertaken in parallel, as shown below.

Upcoming events and activities

• ERA4TB 9th Consortium meeting, 20-21st May 2025 – find out more and register to watch the public plenary sessions
• EMBO-FEBS Lecture Course ‘Cell biology of host-pathogen interactions, 26th -30th May 2025 – find out more and register
• Leibniz Association’s ‘Book a Scientist’, 3rd June 2025 – book a slot with ERA4TB researcher, Linday Sonnenkalb from FZ Borstel
• Population Approach Group Europe (PAGE) conference 2025, 4th-6th June – find out more and register
• 38th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems, 18-20th June 2025 – find out more and register
• ASM Microbe 2025, 19th -23rd June 2025- find out more and register
• Gordon Research Conference, Targets, Leads, Technologies and Clinical Trials for New Tuberculosis Treatment Strategies, 20-25th July – ERA4TB members from the University of Zaragoza will be one of the key-note speeches – find out more