The CEO of a herpes vaccine company at the center of a controversy over an offshore clinical trial on Friday said that future testing of the drug will follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight rules, as demanded by a new group of financial backers that includes venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
In an impassioned interview, Rational Vaccines Chief Agustin Fernandez said he feared the great promise of the vaccine developed by the late university professor William Halford was being overshadowed by criticism over Halford’s decision to test the drug using American patients on the West Indian nation of St. Kitts and Nevis without monitoring by the FDA or an institutional review board (IRB), as is traditional.
