14 DAY TRIAL // Parexel International, the company that ran the tests in London's Northwick Park Hospital, said the reactions to the drug were totally unpredictable. "This type of reaction is extremely rare, and is a very unusual event," head of clinical pharmacology Herman Scholtz said in a Parexel statement. The German manufacturer of the drug, TeGenero AG, confirmed the trial followed all medicals norms.
Doctors from the Northwick Park Hospital, where the 6 men who suffered from side effects are hospitalized, are consulting with international experts in immunology and toxicity in order to understand and to minimize the damages of the unique adverse reactions.
After the men were given dosages of the drug called TGN1412, they started fainting, vomiting or experiencing intense pain. They also suffered from inflammation, which eventually affected their internal organs. 2 of them are very bloated and remain in a critical condition. The other are experiencing some improvements. TGN1412 is under development since 2000 and is designed to treat multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and certain cancers.
Doctors are now struggling to remove TGN1412, a monoclonal antibody, from the organism of the victims. Among the 8 people who tested the drug, 2 were luckier and received placebos.
One of these people, Raste Khan, stated: "They took blood samples from everybody. Then they dosed people at two-minute intervals. Roughly five minutes after everyone had been given the drug, the first person who was given the drug started to shake. He took his top off, he looked like he was burning up, and rubbed his head. Several minutes later, it missed me and went to the third person. He started doing similar things but he vomited on several occasions. He came back to consciousness but was hyperventilating. He looked like he was in the worst pain."
Doctors are in the dark about treating these patients and are uncertain about their full recovery.