The relevance of new drug combinations for modern tuberculosis treatment--a patent perspective.

Drug combinations (DCs) have been successfully used in different kinds of diseases such as cancer, AIDS, malaria, infectious diseases, asthma, diarrhea, hypertension, neurological disorders, among others. In this context, an important concept in drug discovery relates to the fixed-dose combinations (FDC), which can be defined as a formulation of two or more biologically active substances, combined in a single drug, and available at certain fixed doses. FDC presents several advantages, such as reduced risks of emergence of drug resistant strains, improvement of patient compliance, reduced costs of treatment and a simplified drug supply management, shipping and distribution. Due to the importance of DCs in drug discovery, the purpose of this review is to highlight the importance of this strategy for tuberculosis treatment and also for studies of new promising drug combinations to be used against this disease, specially focused on resistant bacterial strains. Relevant patents concerning combined treatment of tuberculosis are analyzed.