Montana expands 'right to try' law By HPN Staff The state of Montana has passed a vigorous new update to its 'right to try' law, becoming the first state in the nation to establish officially recognized experimental treatment centers. Existing Montana law, passed in 2023, had already expanded upon federal right to try legislation by allowing all patients, not only those suffering a terminal illness, to try experimental drugs. Those drugs are defined as having passed the first stage of the FDA’s three-step approval process. The new law establishes a licensing pathway for experimental treatment centers, facilities that will be able to prescribe and dispense experimental drugs to patients for compensation. The law also requires that 2% of an experimental treatment facility’s net annual profit be allocated to help low-income state residents access these therapies. The bill was sponsored by Montana Senate President pro tempore Ken Bogner (R-Miles City), who was also the sponsor of the 2023 bill. It passed on a bipartisan vote and was signed into law by Montana’s governor on May 12, 2025 Why it matters Montana was the first state to expand the right to try to patients with any medical condition. The new law goes a step further, in being the first to establish licensing and registration of clinics to administer experimental therapies and could be used as a model for other states to follow. Healthcare stakeholders also believe the new law sets the state up for medical tourism. Opponents of the right to try argue that the FDA’s phase one testing only assesses a new drug’s safety, not efficacy. Some critics of the new Montana law have described it as creating a “wild west” in experimental treatment, and have also raised possible patent infringement concerns. Proponents of right to try laws, on the other hand, argue that they give patients more control of their own health care by providing access to options that would otherwise be rendered unavailable due to the FDA’s onerous and bureaucratic approval process. Supporters of the new Montana law further say that the regulatory pathway it provides is needed to eliminate uncertainty, increase oversight and bridge the gap between the development and delivery of innovative new treatments. Additional context This bill marks the first time a governing body in the U.S. has permitted licensing of facilities specifically dedicated to dispensing experimental drugs. A federal right to try law was signed by President Donald Trump in 2018 during his first administration, mirroring laws passed in 41 states. The federal law allows terminally ill patients who had exhausted all FDA-approved treatment options and were ineligible to participate in clinical trials access to treatments that had not received full FDA approval. Since then, several states have passed laws expanding on this, including measures to broaden the application of the act to include individualized treatment — pharmaceuticals or biologics tailor-made for a specific application based on an individual’s DNA.
