In this chilling episode of Dark History of Clinical Trials, we explore the devastating 2016 Phase 1 clinical trial in Rennes, France, that left one man dead and several others with lasting neurological damage. Designed to test a new painkiller, the study went catastrophically wrong after investigators escalated the dose without properly analyzing earlier data. We uncover what went wrong, the oversight failures, and how it shook public trust in drug development.

This tragedy serves as a sobering reminder of why data review, transparency, and ethical safeguards in early-phase trials are not just protocols—they are matters of life and death.