TY - JOUR T1 - Tuberculosis diagnostics: which target product profiles should be prioritised? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 537 LP - 540 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00027714 VL - 44 IS - 2 AU - Sandra V. Kik AU - Claudia M. Denkinger AU - Martina Casenghi AU - Caroline Vadnais AU - Madhukar Pai Y1 - 2014/08/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/44/2/537.abstract N2 - To the Editor:Globally, a third of all tuberculosis (TB) cases are not notified and many patients do not receive drug susceptibility testing (DST) [1]. New diagnostics can contribute to increased case detection, shorter diagnostic delay and reduced TB transmission. While the Xpert MTB/RIF assay (Cepheid Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA) is a much needed breakthrough [2], it may not reach lower tiers of the healthcare system [3] and doesn’t meet all needs (e.g. cannot detect resistance against multiple drugs).Several promising diagnostics are under development and companies are showing interest in TB products, inspired by the success of Xpert MTB/RIF [4]. But which new TB diagnostics should they invest in, and what is the potential market size for these products? Stakeholders have expressed a need for different products, including a test for childhood TB [5], a simple point-of-care-test for active pulmonary TB [6], a molecular smear replacement test [7], DST for expected new drug regimens [8], predictive biomarkers for latent TB infection (LTBI) [9], and treatment monitoring [10].Given the variety of these needs, it is important for product developers to have access to: 1) a clearly identified list of diagnostics that are considered high priority by the TB community; 2) well developed, detailed target product profiles (TPPs) for priority diagnostics; and 3) up-to-date market size estimates for the priority TPPs. These issues are being addressed by ongoing activities, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Seattle, WA, USA) and other partners [3, 7, 11].TPPs are useful to align the end-users needs … ER -