India’s new TB drug Risorine could cut down rifampicin use, treatment time

Piperine in Risorine boosts rifampicin efficacy and reduces it dosage to 200 mg from the current 450 mg

Risorine, which uses lesser doses of anti-TB drug rifampicin but with higher efficacy developed indigenously by Indian scientists, could cut short the duration of TB treatment.

Risorine is a combination of currently used anti-TB drugs isoniazid and rifampicin mixed with a new ingredient piperine (extracts of black pepper).

When combined with piperine, the efficacy of the rifampicin gets boosted. In short Risorine enhances the bio-activity of both the TB drugs and therefore reduces the need for high doses.

With Risorine, the dosage comes down, the efficacy increases and the patient gets cured in a shorter span of treatment, according to experts.

Rifampicin containing fixed-dose combinations are the currently approved treatments against TB in India and worldover.

Rifampicin is an potent drug to fight TB but it risks some unpleasant side-effects  that often forces the patients discontinue with the medicine.

Rifampicin has been a first line anti-tubercular drug for a long time now. It has been used for the chemotherapy of Tuberculosis since 1960s and it is known for causing lots of side effects.

A fixed dose combinations normally use 450 mg of rifampicin to effectively combat the TB bacterium, leaving the patient vulnerable to complications and side effects.

Also, the levels of Rifampicin in blood decrease over a period of time due to the auto-induction of drug metabolizing enzymes by rifampicin. This results in sub-therapeutic levels of rifampicin causing treatment failure in tuberculosis.

In Risorin, this problem of rifampicin is well taken care of because the combination pill uses only 200 mg of rifampicin instead of 450 mg, but maintains the same efficacy. Addition of Piperine inhibits auto induction and maintains the same level throughout therapy.

If given along with rifampicin it would act as a catalyst to enhance the capacity of Rifampicin. In effect, the patient will require lesser doses of rifampicin and the treatment would not take the usual long course, experts pointed out.

Risorin also has lower gastro-intestinal side effects.

In a multi-centric clinical trial conducted across India in patients with radiologically confirmed diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis, more than 90% of the patients treated with Risorine were cured of Tuberculosis with comparatively lesser side effects and better safety profile. The areas in which Risorine scores over the earlier modes of treatment are that it is not only cost effective but also safe and more effective.

Manmohan Singh The drug, known to be more effective than existing therapies, has been developed by Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM), Jammu, after 12 years of research.

TB is a major public health problem in the country and India accounts for one-fifth of the global TB incident cases. According to World Health Organization figures, each year 2 million people in India develop TB, of which around 870,000 cases are infectious. It is estimated that TB accounts for around 330,000 death every year in the country.

Tuberclosis is a major cause of many illnesses and deaths worldwide. Globally, 9.2 million new cases and 1.7 million deaths from TB occurred in 2006. India is home to over 3.4 million tuberculosis patients – about one-fifth of the global figure – making it the most TB prevalent country.

Risorine is the outcome of Public Private Partnership between Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (Formerly known as Regional Research Laboratory), Jammu, an institute of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Govt. of India and Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. is one of the largest privately held pharmaceutical companies in India, headquartered at Ahmedabad, in the State of Gujarat.