science

Portola Pharmaceuticals

Portola Pharmaceuticals is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Portola Pharmaceuticals rather than just read about it. In short: Portola Pharmaceuticals is an American clinical stage biotechnology company that researches, develops, and commercializes drugs. The company focuses primarily on drugs used in the treatment of thrombosis and hematological malignancies.

Key takeaways

Portola Pharmaceuticals belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Portola Pharmaceuticals to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Portola Pharmaceuticals from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Portola Pharmaceuticals is an American clinical stage biotechnology company that researches, develops, and commercializes drugs. The company focuses primarily on drugs used in the treatment of thrombosis and hematological malignancies. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in South San Francisco, California, Portola Pharmaceuticals is a member of the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index. In May 2020, Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Portola announced that they had entered into a definitive merger agreement for Alexion to acquire Portola.

History The company was founded on September 2, 2003, and named after Gaspar de Portolà, who was the first European to see San Francisco Bay. It completed an IPO on NASDAQ in May 2013. The company developed P2Y12 inhibitor Elinogrel, transferring rights to Novartis in 2009. The rights were returned in 2012 to Portola, which decided not to continue development. Portola Pharmaceuticals has collaboration agreements with SRX Cardio, Dermavant, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Daiichi Sankyo, Bayer, Janssen, BMS, and Pfizer. In the class action lawsuit of Hayden v. Portola Pharmaceuticals in U.S. District Court, in the Northern District of California, before U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, plaintiffs sued under Section 11 of the Securities Act of 1933 alleging that the company and its underwriters misrepresented its financial position ahead of a 2019 securities offering. In November 2022, Judge Chhabria entered an order granting preliminary approval of the proposed settlement of the case in the proposed settlement amount of $17.5 million.

Products Andexanet alfa (Andexxa), a coagulation factor Xa (recombinant), inactivated-zhzo, the first and only antidote for patients treated with the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) rivaroxaban and apixaban when a reversal of anticoagulation is required due to life-threatening or uncontrolled bleeding. Andexanet is not indicated for the treatment of bleeding related to any FXa inhibitors other than apixaban and rivaroxaban. Approved by FDA in May 2018. In February 2019, the European CHMP of EMA recommended the granting of a conditional marketing authorisation for Andexanet alfa (in EU: Ondexxya). In April 2019 the European Commission granted the authorisation (approved) Andexanet for the 28 countries of the EU. Betrixaban (Bevyxxa), an oral direct FXa inhibitor for prevention of thrombosis; approved by FDA in June 2017. Cerdulatinib, an investigational - not approved - oral multikinase SYK/JAK inhibitor for hematological malignancies and topical use; granted Orphan drug status for PTCL by FDA in September 2018.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Portola Pharmaceuticals

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Portola Pharmaceuticals claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Portola Pharmaceuticals before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Portola Pharmaceuticals ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Portola Pharmaceuticals

In research: Portola Pharmaceuticals appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Portola Pharmaceuticals in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Portola Pharmaceuticals is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2003 establishments in California, 2013 initial public offerings, 2020 mergers and acquisitions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Portola Pharmaceuticals outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Portola Pharmaceuticals in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Portola Pharmaceuticals means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Portola Pharmaceuticals out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Portola Pharmaceuticals in simple terms?

Why does Portola Pharmaceuticals matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Portola Pharmaceuticals?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Portola Pharmaceuticals.