MSF published the costs of its landmark TB-PRACTECAL clinical trial in the journal PLOS Global Public Health. The phase 2b-3 multi-arm multi-stage trial was conducted in low-resource health settings in Belarus, South Africa, and Uzbekistan, helped identify a shorter, all-oral treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), and cost a total of €33.9 million.

The article, “Cost analysis of the TB-PRACTECAL clinical trial on novel tuberculosis treatment regimens,” marks the first time that the detailed costs of an individual clinical trial have been publicly shared, challenging the lack of transparency around drug research and development (R&D).

Building on this analysis, MSF also developed a clinical trial cost reporting toolkit to encourage other stakeholders to publish their clinical trial costs.

The package consist of 5 social media slides (English and international), including quotes from Dr Bern-Thomas Nyang'wa, medical director for MSF (Netherlands).