TB injectable treatment moved a step closer to a clear design brief on 28 October 2026, when the World Health Organization published target regimen profiles for long acting injectable medicines for tuberculosis prevention and treatment. The profiles set out what future injectable regimens would have to achieve to be useful in routine care.
The TB injectable treatment profiles cover two separate uses. For TB preventive treatment, the goal is a complete course delivered through a single injection during one healthcare visit. For active TB disease, the target is a regimen lasting no more than four months, delivered through three or fewer dosing encounters. Both profiles call for injections given by a trained health worker at the lowest feasible level of the health system, small injection volumes, no cold chain, and safety and efficacy at least as good as current oral regimens.
TB injectable treatment of this kind does not yet exist for routine use. The WHO document is a set of development targets for medicines under development, not an announcement of a new drug that patients can receive now. Several candidates are entering or approaching clinical development, but they will still need to be studied and assessed before any could be used in health services.
TB injectable treatment targets for prevention
Preventive treatment is given to people with TB infection who have not developed active disease, to lower their risk of falling ill. At present, preventive treatment usually means taking tablets over weeks or months, a course that can be hard to finish when travel to a clinic is long, when side effects appear, or when daily pills are simply forgotten.
The TB injectable treatment profile for prevention aims to replace that course with one injection at one encounter. The WHO said the profile defines a minimum requirement, which a product must meet to be worth pursuing, and an optimal requirement, described as the most desirable yet realistically achievable target. For prevention, the optimal target is the single injection course.
Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the WHO Department for HIV, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections, said long acting injections could make TB prevention and treatment much simpler for people who need them. The WHO also stressed that improved oral treatments should keep developing alongside injectables, so people who prefer not to receive injections still have suitable options.
TB injectable treatment targets for active disease
Treatment for active TB disease now runs for several months of daily tablets. Missed doses interrupt care, and interrupted care can lead to drug resistance, which makes later treatment longer and harder. The TB injectable treatment profile for disease sets a ceiling of four months and three or fewer dosing encounters, a sharp cut in the number of times a patient must attend for treatment.
The profiles also set out trade offs between characteristics, and they address trial design, overall treatment burden, scalability, equitable access, transparent pricing and cost. The WHO expects injectable regimens for TB prevention and treatment to enter the market at higher prices than existing oral formulations, based on anticipated development and production costs, a point that will matter for national programmes that buy treatment in large volumes.
A WHO convened Scientific Target Regimen Profile Development Group developed the profiles. Its members included clinical trial specialists, pharmacologists, regulators, national TB programme officers, people with lived experience of TB and civil society representatives. Their work drew on a review of current research, a public consultation in April and May 2026, community and provider surveys, focus group discussions and a multicountry experiment examining preferences between treatment options.
TB injectable treatment and the global burden of disease
The case for simpler regimens rests on the scale of TB. According to the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2025, more than 10 million people developed TB worldwide in 2024, while more than 1.2 million died from the disease. India carries the largest TB burden in the world, so a regimen that needs fewer visits could matter more there than in countries where clinics are close and daily treatment is easier to supervise.
The TB injectable treatment profiles are intended to guide pharmaceutical companies, academic researchers, product developers, civil society organisations, donors and communities affected by TB.
For patients, the practical questions remain open. The profiles require small injection volumes and no cold chain, which would ease storage and transport, and they require administration by trained health workers at the lowest feasible level of the system, which points toward primary care rather than specialist hospitals. Whether future TB injectable treatment products meet those targets will be decided in clinical trials, and the WHO profiles will be the yardstick against which trial results are judged.