Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc VRX peaked north of $250 per share in 2015, but by 2017 they dropped to a single digit. Needless to say, this represented a challenging time for the company.
But since bottoming at $8.31 per share this year, the company has made "great progress," at least according to Joe Papa, Valeant CEO since April 2016.
What's Papa Doing?
One of Papa's first initiatives as CEO was forming a "patient access and pricing committee," he explained during an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer. The primary objective was to simply make sure that patients have access to Valeant products. In part, this helped the company reduce its debt load by $500 million since the first quarter of 2016, which is in fact a year or so ahead of an initial timeline.
Other initiatives put in place to turn around the business include bringing products in its pipeline to market, such as Relistor, a therapy to mitigate the effects of opioid medication. So far, sales are strong and are higher by 33 percent year over year, Papa added.
But the executive believes Valeant has much more to offer moving forward in terms of bringing more products to market. Meanwhile, the company has zero debt maturities between now and 2020 which will help the company focus on its mission and also generating acceptable returns for shareholders.
At time of publication, shares of Valeant were up 3.85 percent at $14.69.
Related Links
Valeant Isn't Out Of The Woods Yet
What A Difference 24 Hours Makes For Valeant
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
