STAND. COM. REP. NO. 199-24

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2024

RE: H.B. No. 966

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health & Homelessness, to which was referred H.B. No. 966 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ACCESS TO TREATMENT FOR TERMINALLY ILL PATIENTS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to allow manufacturers of investigational drugs or biological products to make these drugs and products available to terminally ill patients under certain conditions.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Health and Hawaii Medical Service Association.

Your Committee finds that terminally ill patients are severely restricted in terms of care options that utilize investigational drugs and biological products due to the lengthy federal approval process for such treatment. Your Committee further finds that the federal government and forty-one states have enacted "right-to-try" legislation that makes experimental drugs without Food and Drug Administration approval available to terminally ill patients with no other medication or treatment options. Your Committee believes that it is in the interest of public health to expand the care options of terminally ill patients by permitting them to use experimental drugs when they have no other treatment options available.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Changing the effective date to July 1, 3000, to encourage further discussion; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health & Homelessness that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 966, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 966, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Consumer Protection & Commerce.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health & Homelessness,

____________________________

DELLA AU BELATTI, Chair