(Image: Visual Sun Limited/Corbis)
TWO years ago, on 13 March 2006, six previously healthy young men were left fighting for their lives after being injected with an experimental drug in a safety trial at Northwick Park Hospital in London. The drug was supposed to damp down cells in the immune system whose unwanted activity leads to autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. But things went badly wrong, and the volunteers’ immune systems started to run out of control, causing damage that led to multiple organ failure.
Though all six survived, the drug, TGN1412, being developed by TeGenero of Würzburg, Germany, was…
