PARIS—One man is brain dead and three others are facing possible permanent brain damage after volunteering to take part in a botched drug test in western France, the French Health Ministry said Friday.
The prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into what French Health Minister Marisol Touraine called “an accident of exceptional gravity” at the private Biotrial clinical lab in Rennes.
The drug trial, which was testing a new painkiller compound, involved 90 healthy volunteers who were given the experimental drug in varying doses beginning on Jan. 7, she told reporters Friday at a news conference in Rennes.
