The House voted Wednesday to give terminally ill patients access to experimental drugs, after it failed to pass the same bill last week.
The bill, which passed 267-149, is a major priority of the White House, and a version of it passed the Senate last year. President Trump touted the legislation during his State of the Union address in January, and Vice President Pence passed a version of it while serving as governor of Indiana.
The legislation would allow a patient who is terminally ill to request access to a drug that has passed the first of three clinical trials that the Food and Drug Administration requires a drug to go through before getting approval. The first clinical trial looks at whether a drug is safe but doesn’t examine whether it is effective.
Last week, Republicans tried to pass the same bill in a streamlined process that allows less debate and requires a two-thirds majority for passage. But many Democrats opposed it, and it fell in a 259-140 vote, just short of the required supermajority.
Democrats argued the bill provides false hope to patients and could expose them to unsafe products.
But this week, Republicans brought up the same bill under regular order, and after a longer debate, it was able to win the simple majority needed for passage this time around.
It remains unclear if the Senate will take up the new legislation. The House-passed bill included a narrower definition on which patients could be eligible for the program.
The House bill, like the Senate version, does not require the drug maker to provide the product. But it does give new reassurances to drug makers that providing the product will not harm its chances of FDA approval, a key concern that leads manufacturers to not provide the product.
