France Ties Brain-Dead Person to Tests of Bial-Portela Drug
- Three of 90 people in trial may suffer irrepairable harm
- French authorities to begin probe into trial conditions
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Clinical testing on an experimental drug from Bial-Portela & Ca. SA, a closely held Portuguese company, led to six patients being hospitalized in France including one person who was put on life support and diagnosed as brain dead.
Three of the 90 people who took the drug in the early-stage trials that began in July may suffer irreversible harm, Gilles Edan, a doctor at the hospital in Rennes in north-western France, said in a televised briefing on Friday. The six hospitalized patients were those who took the drug repeatedly starting Jan. 7, according to Marisol Touraine, the French minister for health, who called it an accident of “extraordinary gravity.” The testing was stopped on Jan. 11.