Bill > SB72

This bill, called the "Hope for Georgia Patients Act", expands access to individualized investigational treatments for patients with life-threatening or severely debilitating illnesses. The bill defines "individualized investigational treatment" as a drug, biological product, or device uniquely produced for a patient based on their genetic profile, including gene therapies, personalized antisense oligonucleotides, and neoantigen vaccines, while explicitly excluding embryonic stem cell derived treatments. To be eligible, a patient must have a life-threatening or severely debilitating illness, have considered all FDA-approved treatments, receive a physician's recommendation based on genomic analysis, and provide written informed consent. The bill protects physicians from license sanctions for recommending such treatments and ensures that patients understand the potential risks, including the possibility of unanticipated symptoms or hastened death. Health benefit plans are not required to cover these treatments, and manufacturers or eligible facilities can provide the treatments without compensation or with the patient covering manufacturing costs. The bill also provides liability protections for manufacturers, facilities, and healthcare providers who comply in good faith with the law's requirements, while preventing state officials from blocking patient access to these investigational treatments.

Health and Social Services

https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/69767