Pharma BD Deal Intelligence
Outcome grade pending — assessed 5 years post-close.
Full analysis, sources & comparables →The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today granted accelerated approval to Andexxa (coagulation factor Xa [recombinant], inactivated-zhzo), the first and only…
Alexion Pharmaceuticals said on Tuesday it would buy Portola Pharmaceuticals for about $1.41 billion to add the only approved reversal agent for the side…
Atrial fibrillation affects an estimated 6 million people in the United States, with prevalence projected to rise to over 12 million by 2030. AF increases…
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Alexion acquired Portola Pharmaceuticals for $18.00/share in cash, ~$1.41B total; announced May 5, 2020 and completed July 2, 2020 via tender offer (~79.7% of shares tendered) and back-end merger. The deal added Andexxa/Ondexxya (andexanet alfa), the only approved reversal agent for Factor Xa inhibitors (Eliquis, Xarelto), expanding Alexion beyond Soliris into hematology. Activist investor Elliott Management publicly criticized the deal as value-destructive. The thesis ultimately did not hold: andexanet never approached its projected blockbuster sales (peaking near $219M globally in 2024, only ~$81M of it US). Alexion itself was acquired by AstraZeneca (completed July 2021), folding Andexxa into AstraZeneca Rare Disease. The ANNEXA-I confirmatory randomized trial (2024) met its hemostasis endpoint (63.9% vs 52.4% good/excellent hemostasis) but showed materially higher thrombosis (14.6% vs 6.9%) and thrombosis-related deaths. In December 2025 AstraZeneca voluntarily withdrew Andexxa's US biologics license application effective Dec 22-23, 2025 after the FDA concluded its serious thromboembolic risks outweighed its benefit and a path from conditional to traditional approval could not be reached.
Assessment window: 5yr post-close.
| Deal | Year | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. / Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (this deal) | 2020 | $1.4B | — |
| Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. / Synageva BioPharma | 2015 | $8.4B | 36 |
| Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. / Wilson Therapeutics AB | 2018 | $855M | 20 |
| Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. / Syntimmune, Inc. | 2018 | $1.2B | 14 |
| Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. / Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 2019 | $1.2B | — |
| Amgen Inc. / Micromet Inc. | 2012 | $1.2B | 88 |
| Servier / Shire plc (Oncology Business) | 2018 | $2.4B | 88 |
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More: 2020 deals · Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc. deals · Hematology deals