TAG’s 2025 Pipeline Report: TB Diagnostics

14 November 2025

Treatment Action Group (TAG) launches the 2025 Tuberculosis Diagnostics Pipeline Report.

Treatment Action Group (TAG) released the latest edition of its Tuberculosis Diagnostics Pipeline Report, authored by TB Project Associate, Tejaswini Dharmapuri Vachaspathi.

The TB Diagnostics Pipeline Report provides researchers, clinicians, diagnostic developers, funders, civil society, and TB-affected communities with the latest information on the state of the TB diagnostics pipeline. The report outlines tools in late-stage development across screening, diagnosis, drug susceptibility testing, and treatment monitoring, and examines how recent funding threats could jeopardize progress.

This year’s report focuses on a promising new class of tests: near point-of-care (nPOC) tests. Decades of reliance on smear microscopy and culture, inadequate access to World Health Organization (WHO)–recommended rapid diagnostics tests (WRD), and the high price and technical complexity of modern molecular tests have left millions without timely diagnosis. Recent progress in the pipeline offers hope. nPOC TB tests, undergoing WHO review in November 2025, brings a focus on decentralization, faster turnaround times, and the use of nonsputum samples. By enabling testing closer to the point of care, simplifying sample collection by using oral swabs, and delivering rapid results, these nPOC tests could increase access to testing, reduce losses to follow-up, and accelerate treatment initiation — key steps in closing the TB diagnostic gap.

The 2025 report adopts a stance of cautious optimism about tools in the nPOC class and other innovations emerging from the pipeline, while emphasizing the urgent need for decisive investment, accelerated uptake, and dedicated efforts to guarantee access. It concludes with key advocacy priorities to protect and strengthen access to quality TB diagnostics.

TAG also published an updated edition of the TB Treatment Pipeline Report earlier this year and Tuberculosis Vaccines in December 2024.

 

Source: TAG