Former type Subsidiary Fate acquired by Actelion Founder Donald J Santel Number of employees 100 Parent organization Actelion | Industry Pharmaceutical Products Ventavis Founded 2000 Ceased operations January 9, 2007 | |
Defunct January 9, 2007 (2007-01-09) Key people Donald J. Santel, CEO & Director Headquarters South San Francisco, California, United States Motto Developing and Commercializing New Therapies for Life-Threatening Diseases. | ||
CoTherix, Inc. was a biopharmaceutical company located in South San Francisco, California. CoTherix focused on licensing, developing, and commercializing therapeutic products for the treatment of cardiopulmonary and other chronic diseases. The company, formerly known as Exhale Therapeutics, Inc., was founded in February 2000 by Gerard Turino, MD, a past president of the American Thoracic Society, and Jerome Cantor, MD, a pulmonary pathologist.
CoTherix's commercial product was "Ventavis (Iloprost)", an inhaled therapy for pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH). It was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in December 2004, two months after the company's initial public offering of 5 millions shares of common stock.
CoTherix inlicensed Fasudil from Asahi Kasei and its commercialization rights in the U.S. and Europe.
On November 20, 2006, CoTherix agreed to be purchased for $420 million in cash by Actelion of Basel, Switzerland. On January 9, 2007, the deal closed with Actelion paying $13.50 for each share of CoTherix stock.