Update: Animal Testing Failed to Predict Toxicity in French Drug Death

A new report concludes that the death of one man and the hospitalizations of others in a phase 1 clinical trial in France in January was caused by the toxicity of the drug—which was shown to be safe in animal tests on rats, mice, dogs, and monkeys.
 
“At this day, the most likely hypothesis is that the molecule is itself toxic,” says the report from the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety. The report says that it’s “inexplicable” why this wasn’t clear in preclinical trials on animals.
 
To learn more about the dangers of relying on animals for human drug testing and how modern technologies can stop the next pharmaceutical catastrophe, read Averting Drug Disasters in the latest issue of Good Medicine magazine.