RIGHT TO TRY 2.0
(2025-2Q) The idea behind Right-To-Try is that “terminally ill patients who have exhausted their government-approved options” should have the freedom to access treatments that may help them.(1) The idea originated with the Goldwater Institute of Arizona, a member of the State Policy Network (SPN), a market-based group that includes the Policy Foundation.
Treatments must have completed an FDA-approved Phase 1 clinical trial, “be in an active trial intended to form the basis of an application for approval,” and be in “ongoing active development or production and not discontinued by the manufacturer or placed on clinical hold.”
Arkansas Right To Try 1.0
In 2015, the state legislature passed a Right To Try measure later signed into law (AR. Code 20-15-2101) by then Gov.-Asa Hutchinson. Goldwater President Darcy Olsen said, “We all know the pain of losing someone we love to a terminal illness. If you know there’s a treatment that is helping people survive, who is anyone to say ‘No; you don’t have the right to try to save your own life or to save your child’s life’? Of course you do. Of course people should have the right to try promising medicines when they are fighting for their lives.”
Arkansas Right To Try 2.0
This year, the legislature passed an updated Right To Try measure later signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Arkansas became the seventh state since 2022 to empower individuals “facing rare and ultra-rare diseases to work with their physicians to seek highly specialized treatments that are as unique as they are.” Goldwater said it “marks a profound shift toward personalized medicine and a much-needed acknowledgment of the limitations within the traditional regulatory framework.” The latest medical innovations “are made specifically for each patient,” based on genetics, and cannot go through outdated FDA “regulatory processes in a timely manner.”(2) Co-sponsors were Fort Smith Republicans state Sen. Justin Boyd and state Rep. Zach Gramlich.
References
(1) https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/right-try/
(2) Goldwater Institute. “Hope for Rare Disease Patients: Arkansas Expands the Right to Try.” February 27, 2025
