In a path-breaking initiative that has the potential to revolutionalise the drug manufacturing sector, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on Monday launched its Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) programme with the aim of finding a cheap medicine for tuberculosis.

The main objective of the initiative is to produce effective and cheap drugs for diseases like tuberculosis and malaria, which mainly afflict people in developing countries like India, through an alternative process that cannot be patented.