EU member states are not contributing their fair share to research and development for tuberculosis (TB). Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) set out to analyse selected countries in greater detail and the results of funds spent in 2007 are summarised here. MSF sees research and development of new tools for neglected diseases such as TB as a major priority. This is because its field teams are losing too many battles in the fight for the lives of their patients due to the lack of adequate medical tools. Therefore, MSF is calling for a significant scale-up of research and development for TB and increased commitment by European governments.