Dive Brief:
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Valeant lost more than $373 million in Q1, the company reported Tuesday, compared to a profit of $97.7 million for the first quarter last year.
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The controversial pharma company, which has relied on an acquisitions strategy and substantial price hikes to help boost profits, posted the loss even though revenue rose by about $200 million.
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Valeant also reduced guidance for full-year profit down to between $6.60 and $7 per share. Previous guidance had been for profit between $8.50 and $9.50 per share.
Dive Insight:
The bad financial news keeps coming for Valeant. It released a much-delayed annual report in April under pressure from creditors; it was sharply criticized in a congressional hearing last December for its drug price hikes; and just last week, two creditors served it with default notices for delaying the Q1 release.
The stock has suffered as a predictable result. In the first hour of trading Tuesday, the stock stood at $23.10, down more than 20% from Monday's close. By mid-day, it had recovered some of its losses, but still was down nearly 12%. At the end of last July, the stock stood at more than $250 a share.
"While we recognize that we did not meet the timeline for filing our first quarter results, with our filing expected this week, we will be current in our financial reporting," Valeant Chairman and CEO Joseph Papa said in a statement released by the company. "We have made progress toward stabilizing the organization over the past few months, and we expect to file our financial results in a timely manner going forward."
In an earnings call, Papa -- who has been in the position for only a few weeks -- said the company had no plans to sell what he termed its "core assets."
"Having said that as a comment, there are some areas of the company I would refer to as non-core," he said, adding that the the company would consider selling those assets. The money from those sales would be used to pay down debt and "reduce the complexity" of the overall business, he said.