Predicting natural product value, an exploration of anti-TB drug space

Covering: January 1990 to December 2012. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) still remains a deadly pathogen two decades after the announcement of tuberculosis (TB) as a global health emergency by the World Health Organization. In last few years new drug combinations have shown promising potential to significantly shorten TB treatment times. However there are very few new chemical entities being developed to treat this global threat. From January 1990 to December 2012, 949 anti-mycobacterium natural products were reported in the literature. Here we present a perspective based on an analysis of the drug-like properties of the reported anti-mycobacterium natural products in order to assess drug potential.