A review of antimycobacterial drugs in development

The needs of newly developed antitubercular agents are required for the control of tuberculosis in the present time. In the discovery of new antitubercular drugs, the emergence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) has encouraged the researchers to intensify the efforts to discover novel antitubercular drugs. These novel drugs will predominantly target the persistent state of mycobacterium strains, which are resistant to conventional drugs including non resistant mycobacterium strains. In the last three to four decades no new effective drug has been developed for the treatment of resistant tuberculosis. However, in recent years, the research and development programs for the control of TB, there is a lot works is going on to enhancement of the anti-TB activity of new drugs particularly against resistant mycobacterium strains. Simultaneously, practical usefulness of some new targets is being identified and validated for the treatment of TB. Some compounds are presently in clinical trials, while others are being investigated in an attempt to explore new compounds for the target based treatment. The present review provides an overview of the new anti-TB agents with different molecular structures that are being clinically used and advanced stages of preclinical as well as clinical stages and also attempted to highlight the efforts that are being made in the development of new drug molecules as lead anti-TB agents.