[4] One of the focuses of Actelion is treating individuals with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a heart condition that leaves patients with a short life expectancy (7–9 years) even with treatment.

[4] Actelion has 29 operative affiliates globally, including in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, and several EU countries.

[15] The new company Idorsia was created from former Actelion drug discovery operations and early-stage clinical development assets and listed in June 2017 on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

[citation needed] 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 million shares of common stock.

[20][21] In November 2006, CoTherix and Actelion signed a merger plan, which was subsequently announced publicly; this followed the initiation of negotiations in August 2006.

[21] In January 2007, Actelion completed acquisition of all CoTherix stock, and summarily informed Asahi that work on fasudil would be terminated.

[22] However recently many large drug companies, such as Pfizer, Lundbeck, United Therapeutics and now Actelion have been found to be illegally providing cash assistance to charities that help patients with their co-payments in order to increase the demand for their products.

It has been forced to pay a $360 million as a settlement to the United States government for the malpractice relating to kickbacks to Medicare patients.

[22] Analytics 4 Life is a company that uses artificial intelligence to develop solutions for medical illnesses while focusing its efforts on coronary artery disease.

[5] These companies are hoping to be able to accurately assess an individual's cardiac health using imaging technology and thus avoiding the need for an invasive test.

[5] Actelion hopes that using this technology will help detect pulmonary hypertension in more people at an earlier age and thus leading to higher chances of success in the treatment.