Recovery prospects brighten for Kiwi in botched drug trial

A New Zealand man in intensive care in Britain after a botched clinical drug trial is severely swollen but should suffer no long-term effects.

The man, who has not been identified, remains in intensive care but has begun showing signs of improvement, according to the London hospital treating him.

The news comes as another patient taking part in the trial revealed the horror of the moment the tests went wrong. The patient, who was given a harmless placebo, told Sky News how he had watched in horror as the six around him collapsed moments after being injected.

Raste Khan said the volunteers were writhing in agony, continually vomiting and screaming about the pain in their heads.

"This one man was yelling 'doctor, my head hurts, my back hurts. I need help, I can't breathe'. He was just shouting and rambling to himself."

Ganesh Suntharalingam, clinical director of intensive care at Northwick Park Hospital, said the New Zealand man - one of four in a similar condition - was seriously unwell but showing signs of improvement.

He warned that it was early days yet and it was still not known what had caused the violent reaction.

The hospital said the swelling was often a symptom of patients who needed lots of fluids in intensive care and though severe, it was temporary.

"This is distressing for relatives to see, but it does go away on recovery and it has no long-term effects," said Mr Suntharalingam.

Two other men involved in the tests of a drug designed to treat chronic inflammatory conditions and leukaemia remained in a critical condition "and it could be a while until they show significant change".

The trial was being run by US drug research company Parexel International Corp on behalf of German pharmaceutical company TeGenero AG. They were testing a new biotech drug known as TGN 1412.

Another patient, who was given a harmless placebo as a control for the trial told Sky News how he had watched in horror as the six around him collapsed moments after being injected.

Mr Khan said, "It was like Russian Roulette - two of us got away and were lucky."

He said the reaction set in quickly.

"Roughly, maybe a few minutes after the final person had been given the drug, the first person who had been given started to kind of shake, he took his top off, looked like he was kind of burning up. Obviously, I assume he had a headache because he was rubbing his head."

Most of the patients were "moaning and groaning", and only one said what hurt.

As well as saying his head hurt, "He was ... shouting randomly all the things he must have been going through, so many different types of pain," Mr Khan said.

A spokeswoman from the hospital told the Herald last night that staff had spoken to the New Zealand man and a relative who was with him and they did not want to be identified.