Six men who became ill during a drug trial remained in serious condition in a London hospital on Thursday.
Two of the men were listed in critical condition, Northwick Park Hospital said in a statement.
Raste Khan — one of two men given a placebo in the trial — said the six had been stricken within a few minutes of receiving the drug.
”Everyone was continuously vomiting,” Khan said in an interview broadcast Thursday on Sky News.
They were ”fainting, coming back to consciousness. Again I assume they had headaches, because a lot of them were kind of like holding their heads,” he said.
One man was screaming and complained of pain in his back, Khan said
The six men had been given does of TGN1412, a monoclonal antibody developed by TeGenero AG of Wuerzburg, Germany, for treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and leukemia.
”We are continuing to treat the inflammatory disorder triggered by the drug and the resulting effects,” said Dr Ganesh Suntharalingham, clinical director of intensive care at the hospital
Dr Thomas Hanke, TeGenero’s chief scientific officer, said on Wednesday that TGN1412 had not caused any problems in previous testing. – Sapa-AP