Ipsen Pharmaceuticals sold its priority review voucher to an unidentified “large global pharmaceutical company” for $158 million, it said this week, the highest publicly announced price for one of the vouchers in about eight years.
Ipsen obtained the rare pediatric disease voucher in August 2023 thanks to the approval of Sohonos (palovarotene), which is intended to help adults and children with the rare disease known as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.
Priority review vouchers, or PRVs, can be acquired through the approval of rare pediatric disease or rare tropical disease drugs, and then can be sold or used by companies to speed the FDA’s reviews of any new drug.
The $158 million sale is about $50 million more than any of the other PRV sales since last August, which includes sales of between $100 million and $108 million for Krystal Biotech, Valneva, X4 Pharmaceuticals and Day One Biopharmaceuticals.
The last time a PRV sold for more than $158 million was in 2016, when PaxVax Bermuda sold its PRV, acquired via the approval of its cholera vaccine Vaxchora, for $290 million to an undisclosed buyer. PRVs have typically sold for about $100 million since the voucher programs began more than a decade ago, with higher prices of more than $150 million only coming between 2014 and 2016.
“The sale of the PRV generates further firepower for our ongoing medicine launches and external-innovation strategy, which has seen multiple additions to our portfolio at every stage of development in 2024,” Philippe Lopes-Fernandes, chief business officer at Ipsen, said in a statement.