Scott/Hamilton: These New Hampshire Patients Cannot Wait Another Year

By Sarah Scott and Sofia Hamilton, NH Journal

Last week, New Hampshire lost Michael Yakubovich, a former state representative, a husband, a father, and the man whose name is on the Right to Try law he helped bring into existence last year.

He had stage 4 cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer, and he spent the last years of his life not in defeat but in advocacy, demanding that patients like him have the legal right to pursue treatments that might save their lives. Michael’s passing is a reminder that this fight has a clock on it, and for too many Granite Staters, that clock is running out.

The New Hampshire legislature introduced two bills this year that would build on the foundation Michael helped lay. HB 1734 would authorize the establishment of experimental treatment centers: licensed, supervised facilities where patients with a physician’s referral and informed consent can access investigational therapies that have already cleared Phase I clinical trials for safety.

Additionally, HB 1735 would expand New Hampshire’s existing Right to Try protections beyond terminal illness to patients with severe or debilitating conditions, because a disease doesn’t have to be killing you today to rob you of your life.

The importance of strong Right to Try legislation has been recognized nationwide for some time. In 2017, after years of states passing their own protections, the U.S. Congress passed the Right to Try Act of 2017 to secure access to investigational treatments for terminally ill patients who are without other options. HB 1734 and HB 1735 have both passed the House, and Gov. Kelly Ayotte has expressed her support. Now it falls to the Senate to act quickly before the session ends to secure these pathways to treatment for our most vulnerable patients.

The case for these bills is not complicated. New Hampshire is 45 minutes from the world’s largest biotech hub and includes a growing biotech hotspot around Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.

By authorizing experimental treatment centers, the Granite State would transform into a destination for medical innovation and the investment that follows it. Patients whose only options for care are to travel to other states or other countries, or simply give up, would have access to promising therapies close to their homes, families, and the doctors they know and trust.

Investment in New Hampshire isn’t hypothetical. Dozens of biotech companies are awaiting approval to enter the state and begin delivering treatments to patients. The benefits extend far beyond health care, bringing significant economic growth, job creation, and new opportunities for local communities. Even before these reforms have been implemented, the state has already seen a marked increase in its biotech industry.

Right to Try, in its expanded form, recognizes something that should be obvious but has been stubbornly resisted by the medical establishment: a patient facing a chronic and debilitating illness that has failed every approved treatment deserves the right to try everything that is available to them.

The government’s job is not to protect patients from hope — it is to protect patients from fraud and coercion, which these bills do through informed consent requirements and physician oversight.

Opponents argue these measures expose vulnerable patients to risk. We ask: risk compared to what? Compared to the certainty of decline when every approved option has been exhausted? Compared to the despair of being told there is nothing left to try? The patients these bills are designed to help have already run out of safe, approved options. What they are asking for is the chance, not the guarantee, the chance, to try something new.

Michael Yakubovich understood this. He wrote about it, testified about it, and then, when his own illness made the journey to the State House impossible, he kept advocating from wherever he was.

The New Hampshire legislature should pass these reforms without delay. Not next session. Not after further study. Now, while the patients these bills would serve are still here to benefit from them.

New Hampshire has always prided itself on being first, on being bold, and on trusting its citizens to make decisions about their own lives. This is not a hard call. It is a chance to lead and a chance to honor the people who fought so hard to make this freedom possible

Sarah Scott is the Deputy State Director of Americans for Prosperity-New Hampshire, while Sofia Hamilton is a health care policy analyst for Americans for Prosperity. She e wrote this for NHJournal.com

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.