Portola ready to go it alone after Merck bows out of factor Xa partnership
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Portola Pharmaceuticals CEO William Lis said Merck's decision to return the rights to his firm for betrixaban, an investigational oral factor Xa inhibitor anticoagulant being evaluated for the prevention of stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation, came as no surprise, insisting that the companies had been in discussions for awhile about the smaller biotech independently taking the drug forward.