Trial disaster reduces TeGenero to insolvency

The German pharmaceutical trial company whose drug put two men in a deep coma following their participation in a clinical trial has announced it is going into liquidation.

TeGenero, who produced the drug TGN1412 which was disastrously tested by US firm Parexel earlier this year, said its insolvency had come as a direct result of the negative publicity generated by its case.

The firm’s failure to attract investors for future funding was caused by the substantial press coverage the case attracted, TeGenero explained in a statement issued this afternoon.

British newspapers at the time of the failed drug trial featured pictures of one of the six men taken to Northwich Park hospital after their head and body swelled to unnatural proportions, showing his swollen head and body and blackened fingers and toes.

TeGenero announced “regretfully” that “the management of the company has filed for the commencement of insolvency proceedings at the competent local court / insolvency court Wurzburg”.

“The adverse events suffered by the volunteers in the TGN1412-HV trial were personally devastating for everyone at the company, dedicated as they are to the development of medicines which are intended to help people with serious disease conditions,” the statement read.

“The unpredictability of such effects, presents a major challenge for the industry if it is to develop this kind of innovative and powerful treatments and we regret that our company will not be able to continue working to find a solution in the present scope.”

Since TeGenero received its adverse publicity the pharmaceutical industry has come under wider attack for the unmonitored nature of many clinical drug trials.

Industry experts like Sir Iain Chalmers of treatment monitoring organisation the James Lind Library have called for the introduction of regulation by the government, saying that pharmaceutical companies “cannot be trusted”.

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