Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends 2005 – 2019

December 7, 2020 – Global funding for tuberculosis (TB) research totaled over US$900 million in 2019, the second highest level on record, according to a report released today by Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the United Nations-hosted Stop TB Partnership. The report—Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends, 2005–2019—presents new data on 2019 funding for TB research and development (R&D) and analyzes trends in investment since 2005. TB killed more people than any other single infectious agent in 2019. The figures for 2019 provide a last look at funding for TB R&D before the devastating emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, an event whose full effect on the research landscape for TB and other infectious diseases will only be known in a few years’ time.

The report reveals that governments, philanthropies, pharmaceutical companies, and other organizations are making progress, but slowly, toward meeting the global goal to spend $2 billion on TB research annually. The $900 million spent on TB R&D in 2019 falls more than halfway short of the $2 billion target set by United Nations (UN) member states at the 2018 UN High-Level Meeting on the Fight to End Tuberculosis.