Should the Terminally Ill Have Access to Experimental Drugs? Murrieta Lawmaker Says 'Yes'

By City News Service:

An Inland Empire lawmaker’s bill seeking to make experimental drugs available to terminally ill patients is awaiting further scrutiny in the state Senate.

Sen. Jeff Stone, R-Palm Desert, said he introduced Senate Bill 149, the “Right To Try Act,” in the hope of knocking down “bureaucratic” barriers that prevent potentially life-saving drugs from reaching people who might benefit from them.

“Imagine you have a terminal disease and only have a short time to live,” Stone said in a video posted to his official website Friday. “Further imagine there’s a drug that has a chance -- even a remote chance -- to save your life. But you can’t take it because it hasn’t been approved by the government.”

Stone, a licensed pharmacist, said the Right To Try Act is analogous to measures passed by lawmakers in Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan and Missouri. The thrust of the proposal, he said, is to “allow terminally ill patients, who have exhausted all conventional treatments, access to experimental or ‘investigational’ drugs.”

He said he witnessed “first-hand, over too many years, the desperation people face when their only hope is a drug that’s still caught up in a lengthy and difficult bureaucratic process.”

SB 149 would permit California doctors to write prescriptions for drugs that have cleared stage one clinical trials but have not yet received the federal Food and Drug Administration’s stamp of approval.

“My bill would speed up the process of providing potentially life- saving drugs to people without needless delays,” Stone said.

SB 149 would expressly prohibit state action against physicians who write prescriptions for experimental drugs, biological products or devices, and would also shield hospitals that permit the treatments from being penalized.

The bill would not mandate that a public or private health plan provide automatic coverage for experimental drugs. However, it would allow pharmaceutical companies to collect data on how patients respond to their products.

Nothing in the proposed law would compel a supplier to make the drug available.

“Now is the time for California to get this done,” Stone said. “That’s what I fully intend to do.”

SB 149 is under review by the Senate Rules Committee, which is expected to assign it to another committee for hearings next month.

(Image via Shutterstock)