 Twenty-nine physicians and scientists working with people with cystic fibrosis (CF) wrote to the CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals to plead for lower prices.CFF made the investment in exchange for a promise of royalties paid on sales of any drug it funded that made it to market; in 2014 it sold the future royalty stream to Royalty Pharma, a royalty fund investment company, for $3.3 billion, and said that it would use the funds to invest yet more in research and clinical trials for cystic fibrosis treatments.In the course of working out the deal with Aurora in 2000, CFF included a clause in the agreement that allowed them to take control of the intellectual property if Aurora stopped developing any drug that had been discovered.