Dive Brief:
- Valeant's board of directors has asked CEO Michael Pearson to cooperate with a Senate panel's subpoena, after the committee reportedly considered holding him in contempt for failing to show up to a deposition last week.
- The Senate Special Committee on Aging subpoenaed Pearson to appear for a deposition in connection to a drug pricing hearing to be held later this month. But, Pearson did not appear because the order was too broad, according to a report from Bloomberg.
- Valeant said Pearson was "in dialogue" with the committee regarding the deposition.
Dive Insight:
The Aging special committee has held a series of hearings as part of its investigation into price increases for older, branded drugs. During one such hearing last month, a number of executives from Turing Pharmaceuticals were grilled about its infamous 5,000% price hike for the toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim.
Pearson has been called to testify at another hearing scheduled for April 27. But he did not attend a private deposition last Friday, prompting the committee to consider initiating contempt proceedings. His lawyer said the subpoena had too wide a scope, Bloomberg reported.
Now, however, Valeant's board is asking him to cooperate. "The Board has requested Mr. Pearson's cooperation in connection with a subpoena for deposition from the Senate Committee on Aging prior to the Committee's scheduled April 27 hearing," a statement from the company said.
Valeant has been struggling to recover from a series of setbacks as it works on filing its much-delayed annual report with the Securities and Exchange Committee. The company's lenders agreed to give the drugmaker an additional month to file the report, diminishing the threat the company might default on its credit facility. Before receiving an extension, Valeant would have triggered a default if it failed to file the report by April 29.
The company last month announced Pearson would be stepping down as CEO once a successor was found as part of a reorganization which included adding activist investor Bill Ackman to the company's board.