Portola Pharmaceuticals Appoints Jean-Jacques Bienaime to Board of Directors

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – September 23, 2010) – Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced the appointment of Jean-Jacques Bienaimé to the company’s board of directors. Mr. Bienaimé currently serves as chief executive officer of BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. He is chairman of the board of NeurogesX, Inc., a member of the board of BIO and a member of the advisory board of Bellevue Asset Management’s BioVentures II fund.

“Jean-Jacques Bienaimé is a biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience,” said William Lis, chief executive officer of Portola. “His experience as a CEO managing and building fully integrated biotechnology companies and his expertise commercializing anti-thrombotic products will be invaluable to Portola as we advance our two lead partnered product candidates, elinogrel and betrixaban, and our pipeline of proprietary products in cardiovascular disease and inflammation through clinical development and into commercialization.”

Mr. Bienaimé joined BioMarin, which develops and commercializes innovative biopharmaceuticals for serious diseases and medical conditions, in May 2005 as chief executive officer and member of the board of directors. Prior to joining BioMarin, he served as chairman, chief executive officer and president of Genencor, a biotechnology company focused on industrial bioproducts and targeted cancer biotherapeutics. Before that, he served as chairman, chief executive officer and president of Sangstat Medical Corporation, an immunology-focused biotechnology company that he guided to profitability prior to its acquisition by Genzyme Corporation. Earlier in his career, Mr. Bienaimé held several senior management positions at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharmaceuticals (now sanofi-aventis) culminating in the position of senior vice president of worldwide marketing and business development responsible for, among other things, the launch of Lovenox^® (for the prevention of pulmonary embolism and treatment of unstable angina) in the United States. He also worked at Genentech, Inc. where he was involved in the launch of tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) for the treatment of heart attacks.

He received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an undergraduate degree in economics from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris.

About Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Portola Pharmaceuticals develops innovative therapeutics based on targets with established proofs of concept that are designed to provide significant advances over current treatments for cardiovascular disease and inflammation. The company has global development and commercialization agreements with two of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies collectively valued at about $1 billion in upfront and milestone payments plus double-digit royalties on future sales. Betrixaban, its oral direct Factor Xa inhibitor, is licensed to Merck & Co., Inc., and elinogrel, its competitive, reversible P2Y₁₂ ADP receptor antagonist, is licensed to Novartis Pharma AG. Both are Phase 2 product candidates that have features to address the global multi-billion dollar hospital, specialty and chronic care anticoagulant and antiplatelet markets, respectively.

Portola’s proprietary pipeline programs are focused on the discovery and development of PRT061103, a thromboxane receptor antagonist, which is targeted to address a significant unmet need as a potential aspirin alternative for patients intolerant to aspirin; PRT064445, a Factor Xa inhibitor antidote to help manage or reverse the bleeding complications in the tens of millions of patients expected to be treated with Factor Xa inhibitors or low-molecular weight heparin worldwide in the next decade; and PRT062607, a novel, oral Syk-specific kinase inhibitor to treat chronic inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, and certain cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. For additional information, visit www.portola.com.