WHO Assembly Advances Post-2030 TB Strategy and Formally Recognizes SLD as Growing NCD Burden

Three resolutions adopted at the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly on 21 May 2026 carry direct pipeline and capacity planning implications for manufacturers operating in infectious disease, hepatology, and haematology therapeutic areas. The decisions set regulatory and public health trajectories that will shape procurement frameworks, development incentives, and manufacturing demand well into the next decade.

On tuberculosis, the Assembly endorsed a decision directing the Director-General to develop a post-2030 TB strategy for submission to the Eighty-first World Health Assembly in 2028, timed to precede the 2028 United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB. The mandate explicitly incorporates emerging scientific advances and current epidemiological trends, signalling that novel drug classes and regimen optimisation will be central to the new framework. Between 2000 and 2024, expanded treatment saved an estimated 83 million lives, and 2024 recorded the first post-pandemic decline in TB incidence alongside the highest-ever access levels to essential TB services. Despite those gains, global targets under the End TB Strategy remain off track, attributed to chronic underfunding, pandemic-related disruptions, and climate-related displacement, conditions that sustain demand for both first-line and second-line manufacturing capacity.

For QA directors and regulatory leads in hepatology, the Assembly's formal recognition of steatotic liver disease (SLD) as a major NCD shifts the condition from a peripheral concern to a prioritised global health agenda item. Affecting an estimated 1.7 billion people and closely linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, SLD is now subject to a resolution calling on Member States to integrate it into national NCD strategies and strengthen surveillance. The resolution also requests WHO to report biennially on progress, creating a structured data stream that will inform regulatory submissions and health technology assessments in markets where SLD prevalence data has historically been thin.

A third resolution reaffirmed Member State commitments on haemophilia and other bleeding disorders, with the Assembly noting that nearly 70% of people living with haemophilia remain undiagnosed globally. The resolution targets gaps in diagnosis, prophylaxis access, and care infrastructure, areas where factor concentrate and gene therapy manufacturers will need to align supply planning with anticipated demand growth in lower-resource markets.

Collectively, the three decisions establish a policy architecture that will feed into national procurement strategies, WHO prequalification priorities, and ultimately the GMP compliance expectations placed on suppliers serving these therapeutic categories over the next several years.

The post-2030 TB strategy's submission deadline of 2028 gives manufacturers a defined window to align process validation programmes and capacity investments with the incoming framework before it reaches Member State implementation.

Source: World Health Organization via WHO News (English), 21 May 2026.