Clinical Trial Companies Argue Deaths Not Linked to Trials

Clinical trial-related deaths have come to the fore following announcements from two companies about incidents during trials.

Ziopharm Oncology is reporting that a patient died following intracranial hemorrhaging during clinical trials assessing its brain cancer immunotherapy candidate, Ad-RTS-hIL-12.

Ziopharm said that it does not believe the death was related to the therapy and will submit a report to the agency once a formal investigation is completed. The company’s trial remains open.

This was the third death in the trial, although investigations into the other two deaths determined that the deaths were not due to the therapy.