The High Court today approved the compromise of a claim brought by a patient entered into the clinical trial of a drug manufactured by a global pharmaceutical company under the APBI Clinical Trials Compensation Scheme. While the details of the claim, and the terms of settlement, are confidential, the case involved highly complex issues of pathophysiology, including the causal interaction between the drug administered during the trial and the underlying disease process and its effect on the Claimant’s subsequent clinical history. The complexity of those medical issues was mirrored, in turn, by those of legal causation and the application of the concept of material contribution to a case of this type. John and Emma-Louise, instructed by Sevim Ahmet of Fieldfisher, represented the Claimant. Neil Block KC and Judith Ayling KC of 39 Essex represented the Defendant.
