Are pri­or­i­ty re­view vouch­er pro­grams stim­u­lat­ing drug de­vel­op­ment? The da­ta sug­gest not re­al­ly, finds GAO re­port

What is the im­pact of the three pri­or­i­ty re­view vouch­er pro­grams (PRV) on drug de­vel­op­ment? Not much, ac­cord­ing to da­ta an­a­lyzed by Con­gres­sion­al watch­dog GAO.

PRV pro­grams of­fer com­pa­nies a perk in the form of a vouch­er when a new treat­ment — in the field of rare pe­di­atric dis­ease, trop­i­cal dis­ease or med­ical coun­ter­mea­sure — is ap­proved. These vouch­ers can be used to has­ten the re­view of an­oth­er drug or be sold. Al­to­geth­er, the three pro­grams: trop­i­cal dis­ease PRV (au­tho­rized in 2007), the rare pe­di­atric dis­ease PRV (sanc­tioned in 2012) and the med­ical coun­ter­mea­sure PRV (backed in 2016) have led to the de­ploy­ment of a to­tal of 31 PRVs — of which 17 have been sold for vary­ing sums, rang­ing from $67.5 mil­lion to $350 mil­lion.

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