Montana’s experimental treatment law hands a VC the keys
Investors on the libertarian fringe of the biotech industry are making their dream of wide-ranging access to experimental drugs a reality in Montana.
Montana's experimental treatment law, known as right-to-try, allows patients to access drugs not yet approved by the FDA. The biotech industry helped draft this law in hopes of creating a medical tourism hub. Now, a privately run board, overseen by a biotech investor named Niklas Anzinger, decides which treatments to offer. This has raised concerns about conflicts of interest.
Last month, the board approved a treatment involving a daily antihistamine and a proprietary sound mix, not approved by the FDA. Anzinger's venture-capital fund, Infinita VC, has invested in longevity startups in Honduras. Critics, like Arthur Caplan, a former head of medical ethics at New York University, call it a risky endeavor, akin to a prediction market rather than medical research.
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