Montana’s experimental treatment law hands a VC the keys

Getty Images; Andreas Macho; Alyssa Powell/BI The biotech industry helped draft Montana's right-to-try law, hoping to create medical tourism hub. Now, the state is relying on a privately run board to decide which experimental treatments to offer. The company behind it created a biotech hub in a regulation-free zone on a Caribbean island. Investors on the libertarian fringe of the biotech industry are making their dream of wide-ranging access to experimental drugs a reality in Montana. Last year, they helped draft a state law to expand access to drugs that no regulator has deemed safe and effective. Now, Montana is relying on a privately run board to decide which treatments to offer — raising concerns about conflicts of interest and, in an industry rife with unfounded claims, whether patients will get value for their money. A company that works with biotech firms in a regulation-free zone off the coast of Honduras is in charge. Last month, the board authorized its first treatment: Patients seeking a cure for hearing loss will take a daily antihistamine and listen to a Denver company's proprietary sound mix for 60 minutes a day. The treatment hasn't been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, and it wasn't reviewed by the state. It was approved by a privately run review board created by a biotech investor named Niklas Anzinger. Anzinger is a key figure in Próspera, a private city on a Caribbean island, where anti-aging startups can administer experimental treatments without government oversight or evidence that they are safe. Próspera, whose investors include Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, gained attention last year when longevity influencer Bryan Johnson was filmed receiving a $25,000 gene therapy treatment there in the widely watched Netflix documentary, "Don't Die." Now, players in the booming global longevity industry want to make Montana into a similar medical tourism hub. More than 40 US states have adopted measures designed to increase patients' access to therapies not approved by the FDA, and two federal programs also allow some patients to access unapproved treatments. Montana's "right-to-try" law allows a much broader swath of patients, including those who don't have life-threatening illnesses, to access experimental treatments. Niklas Anzinger helped create a hub for biotech companies in a regulation-free zone in Honduras. Andreas Macho Anzinger argues that small biotechs can't compete in a market regulated through large, expensive clinical trials and that they need a system like Montana's to finance and develop therapies that patients would otherwise never get. He says that Montana's system will cut costs and provide a top-tier clinical space for Americans who now travel abroad for everything from psychedelic drugs in Mexico to cutting-edge hair replacement in Turkey and stem cells in Switzerland. "This is really kind of a potential paradigm change in how we do science instead of top down, more bottom up, but still in a controlled way with oversight and everything," Anzinger said on a recent podcast. The Montana experiment hinges on whether the Trump administration's FDA chooses to take enforcement action against companies that participate. The biotech industry has reason to hope: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to increase access to longevity treatments that purport to extend life like stem cell therapies, peptides and chelation. Last year, he said he had traveled to Antigua to receive a non-FDA-approved stem cell treatment for a neurological condition that affects his voice. The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, a Virginia-based biotech industry group, helped draft Montana's latest right-to-try legislation, along with Anzinger, who is a member of the alliance, according to the alliance and the bill's sponsor, the Republican state senator Kenneth Bogner. Anzinger, a 37-year-old German, is the founder of Infinita City Inc., which helped create a hub for biotech companies in Próspera, an autonomous city in Honduras. Anzinger's venture-capital fund, Infinita VC, has invested in longevity startups there, including Minicircle, which sells a gene therapy intended to increase muscle mass, and Unlimited Bio, which is testing a gene therapy for circulation, endurance, and hair growth. Próspera is part of a movement among bitcoin millionaires, startup founders, and libertarians to create autonomous private cities. Anzinger has been promoting Montana in Próspera. In a co-working space for startups there earlier this year, tables and doors were decked with stickers that said: "SB535. Montana's Longevity Law." Anzinger said Bogner, the state Senate president pro tempore, invited him to Montana and "basically asked me, 'Well, what else do we need to do? How does the law need to look like to bring you and the biotech companies that you're talking to?'" "Anzinger took action," Bogner said in an interview. "He came out to Montana to learn how to make Montana a fu