Acadia Pharmaceuticals agreed to sell a priority review voucher to an undisclosed buyer for $150 million, a price tag on the high end for the coveted passes that speed up Food and Drug Administration reviews of new medicines.
The company won the voucher in March 2023, along with FDA approval of its Daybue treatment for a rare pediatric disease. The transaction will leave Acadia with $100 million after sharing proceeds with Neuren Pharmaceuticals, the company said Tuesday. Acadia licensed Daybue from Neuren in 2018.
Prices for the vouchers have often hovered between $100 million and $110 million in recent years in deals by companies including Bluebird bio, Novo Nordisk and Sarepta Therapeutics. This year has seen a $103 million sale by Valneva in February, $105 million by X4 Pharmaceuticals in May, $108 million by Day One Biopharmaceuticals in May and $158 million by Ipsen in August.
“The move is a nice incremental win,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Gregory Renza wrote in a note to clients. Acadia’s patience in waiting for a high bid paid off as “the scarcity value is perhaps more appreciated by the market,” Renza wrote. He noted that the FDA’s planned sunsetting of the rare pediatric disease voucher program is likely pushing values higher.
Acadia said it will use the proceeds to support commercial operations, spur future business development and fund rare disease and central nervous system research. In addition to Daybue, Acadia sells a drug called Nuplazid for hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease psychosis.
Daybue is used to treat Rett syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that usually strikes infants between the ages of six and 18 months, causing their development to regress. Daybue had sales of $85 million in the second quarter.
