The latest report from the Treatment Action Group (TAG) and the Stop TB Partnership, on global funding trends for TB research and development (R&D), presents new data on TB R&D funding in 2018 and analyzes trends in funding since 2005.

The report - Tuberculosis Research Funding Trends, 2005-2018 - is a critical accountability tool and serves as a barometer of progress in raising support for the scientific innovation needed to eliminate TB.

Global TB research funding totaled US$906 million in fiscal year 2018, an increase of $134 million from 2017. This is the highest level of funding ever recorded by TAG. TB scientists and their advocates should feel encouraged by three back-to-back years of increasing investments from 2016 to 2018. However, the 2018 funding figure still falls more than half-way short of the US$2 billion annual target set at 2018’s United Nations High Level Meeting on TB.

"The US$134 million increase in TB research funding is cause for celebration and shows that the tireless efforts of TB partners around the world are getting results," said Lucica Ditiu, Executive Director of the Stop TB Partnership. "But this still leaves us short of the US$2 billion annual funding figure endorsed at the UN High-Level Meeting. Because we're off track, we'll now need to spend more each year to make up the deficit. We can’t afford to coast on recent momentum if we are serious about ending TB - it’s time to put our money where our mouths are".