Brazil to produce new tuberculosis drug with help of India

Brazil will produce a new drug against tuberculosis with the help of India, state news agency Agencia Brasil announced Monday.

The agency said the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation's Farmanguinhos lab has been granted the permit to produce the new drug.

A partnership between Farmanguinhos and India's Lupin lab will allow Farmanguinhos to gradually master the biotech to develop the drug in its own labs in Rio.

"Production at Farmanguinhos is expected to start in 2017," Farmanguinhos project manager Gisele Moreira said.

The drug combines four active ingredients in a single pill, considered by the World Health Organization as a more efficient approach to tuberculosis treatment.

Tuberculosis is still a problem in Brazil, where 71,123 new cases were registered in 2013. Some 4,400 Brazilians died from the disease in 2012. Enditem