The mechanism: Since 2007, Congress has let the FDA hand out a strange kind of money: transferable Priority Review Vouchers (PRVs), awarded to sponsors that win approval of a drug for a rare pediatric disease, a neglected tropical disease, or a "material threat" medical countermeasure. A PRV lets its holder — or whoever buys it — cut a future FDA review from the standard ~10 months to about 6 months for any other drug in the pipeline, no relation to the original disease required. Because getting a blockbuster to market four months early can be worth hundreds of millions in exclusivity-period sales, PRVs trade as a real secondary asset, and the price has been climbing: Jazz Pharmaceuticals sold one for $200 million in January 2026 — the highest price in a decade — and Rocket Pharmaceuticals closed a $180 million sale the same quarter. This is policy design functioning as a bond market: Congress sets the incentive, FDA issues the paper, biotechs cash it or spend it.