Pharmacological Principles in the Use and Development of Antituberculosis Drugs

Recent advances in the development and deployment of antituberculosis drugs have been underpinned by an improved understanding of their pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic behavior in the complex context of tuberculosis disease in the host. New information from novel technologies has helped to clarify aspects of drug distribution and action, which contribute to the critical clinical phenomena of persistence and resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), while effective integration of these data through quantitative pharmacology tools has facilitated more rational decision-making in preclinical and clinical drug development. This new framework permits a much more extensive and efficient evaluation of the space of novel and repurposed multidrug regimens in tuberculosis with the expectation of accelerating the arrival of even shorter, safer, and more effective treatments in the clinic.