Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Health Individualized Treatment topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Senate approves 'right to try' bill for individualized treatments; medicinal‑cannabis amendment fails
Summary
The Kansas Senate passed a bill creating a limited pathway for patients with ultra‑rare, life‑threatening conditions to access individualized investigational treatments. An amendment to add medicinal cannabis lost in a roll call; senators debated safety, access and the bill's scope.
The Kansas Senate on Feb. 20 passed Senate Bill 250, the Right to Try for Individualized Treatment Act, creating a narrowly defined, physician‑directed pathway for patients with ultra‑rare, life‑threatening or debilitating diseases to seek individualized investigational therapies not otherwise available in the United States.
Supporters said the bill fills a gap for families of patients with conditions caught early by genetic testing. “In order to get Kira this promising individualized treatment, we packed up our family and relocated to Milan, Italy,” Senator Gossage recounted on the floor, summarizing committee testimony about a family that sought a gene‑therapy abroad because it was not available in the U.S.
The bill’s sponsor, Senator Gossage, described the measure as not changing federal Right to Try law but creating a “new safe and physician‑directed pathway” that requires compliance with federal protections for human subjects. Proponents said facilities providing individualized therapies must hold federal assurances and that the act responds to advances in genomic medicine that produce treatments tailored to a single patient.
Senators debated an amendment (1566) that would have explicitly added medicinal cannabis to the list of products accessible under the bill. The amendment was rejected in a roll call election 9–31. Supporters of the amendment said access to medicinal cannabis is already used in neighboring states and could provide benefit for patients in limited circumstances; opponents warned of unintended consequences, citing law‑enforcement and public‑health concerns and testimony from agencies who opposed expanding cannabis access in this context.
After debate, the Senate approved the underlying bill. The bill as passed emphasizes physician direction and federal human‑subjects protections and does not itself legalize any substances that are illegal under federal law.
What happens next: the bill will move to the House for consideration. If enacted, it would establish a state‑level framework for physician‑directed access to individualized investigational therapies while leaving broader questions about medicinal cannabis to separate legislation.
Votes and procedural notes: An amendment to add medicinal cannabis (amendment 1566) failed on a roll call (9 in favor, 31 opposed). The Senate later recorded final passage of SB 250. (Vote tallies are recorded in the Senate roll calls.)
