His name is Brent Saunders. He's a lawyer who made a fortune running drug companies while saying he didn't even want to try to discover drugs. Now he's lecturing Elon Musk on social responsibility.
Oh Alex, you've struck a nerve with me. I worked at Actavis in the legal department when the Forest Labs deal was consummated. I was also there while Brent and his buddies ran Actavis, and later Allergan, into the ground. You've got this man pegged to a tee.
His game is to move from company to company, loading himself and his cronies, who he always brings with him, with stock. He then seeks out a partner to buy the company at a premium so he and his buddies can cash out. He did it at Bausch, Forest and then Actavis/Allergan. He's looking to pull the same game at Bausch again, although he may have some trouble pulling it off this time.
All along the way, he does exactly what you say, cutting employees and funding for operations to make the company look good in the short term, boosting the stock price.
He is also a bald faced liar. I remember the whole Pfizer saga. He would get up on the podium during townhall meetings and swear up and down that he wasn't trying to have the company bought by Pfizer. And this was in answer to direct questions on the topic. We all knew what he was up to, because he also isn't very good at keeping secrets.
When Pfizer fell through he took to swearing up and down that he wasn't trying to sell the company's generics division, which he finally did as a prerequisite to the Abbvie transaction.
By the way, you forgot to mention his stunt of selling the company's patents on Restasis to an Indian Tribe to avoid a patent reexamination procedure using sovereign immunity. I know a little bit about that.
It's what has perhaps been a silver lining in this past plandemic in just how corrupt the Government-Pharma-Medical-Media cabal IS. Many here have probably known this is nothing new, and has been going on for decades and decades. Just astonishing how many AMERICANS still fall prey to the slick corrupt advertising where they are told to "ask their Doctor" The coddled, entitled and victim mindset of so many is appalling. Personal responsibility and independent critical thought for a life lived well is not rocket science, and yet Pharma continues to make HUGE $$$'s because they know how to manipulate the minds of sheep
Part of many of the issues with American medicine is government involvement: from impacting the number of medical schools to interfering with the market to awful FDA behavior. But not discovering new drugs is equally atrocious.
I know this makes people eyes roll and yawn - but all our problems - from Internet Bubbles to Housing Bubbles to Bitcoin Bubbles to NFT bubbles to Pharma Bubbles - stem from the tax code. It's not that the crumbs fall, but you get to keep more of the crumbs if you do something that on the face of it doesn't make sense. Like move your "head-office" to an Ireland townhouse with 3 lawyers and cut your tax bill by half. Or buy a profitable company for $10B, load it up with $12B in debt, pay a crazy dividend, and then at 10 years, go bankrupt and lay off everyone without severance or pension. For Toys-R-Us, bankruptcy was more lucrative than a 0% bailout loan. Due to taxes.
I'm hoping enlightened writers/speakers will stop referring to "healthcare" in the US. What we have is disease care. We used to call it medical care, before the industry rebranded itself in the '70's or '80's.
Our health care system, f***ed up as it is is underwritten by the federal government, which pays most of the bills......about 55% of health care industry revenue can be traced back to federal funds, by far the largest chunks are Medicare and Medicaid, but there are dozens of programs.
As with the military industrial complex, the government doesn't look behind the curtain to see how the money is being spent. There is no oversight, no quality control, and state laws which at one time limited hospital's rights to open or close facilities, based on a public assessment of need, have almost all been repealed.
What is infuriating is the phony debate about "socialized medicine". We have socialized medicine, designed to benefit the Brent Saunders of the nation. Most people who do have insurance are hemmed in by restrictions on their choice of provider as a condition of the insurance, especially if its partially paid for by the employer. So the possibility of hospitals competing in an open market based on the quality of care they provide is, to be polite, extremely attenuated. Increasingly, regional health care markets are dominated by 2 or three providers, creating the possibility of industry cartels to foil public oversight or genuine competition, reminiscent of the US Big Three automakers deciding it was in their financial interest not to compete on anything real about their vehicles, e.g., price, performance, safety, fuel economy, until they were upended by imports that offered choices on those matters.
There's no accident here, just a long term campaign of the industry to establish bipartisan support for their gravy train, by channeling some of that generous government funding back into campaign support.
“ It’s not unusual for some elders to spend days lying on stretchers in Quebec ERs. …
Almost 14,000 Quebecers today have been languishing more than a year for their surgery. …”
Etc etc
Medicine seems so simple to do, but they’ve found ways to ruin it everywhere! Big government and big corporations equally. Maybe after civilization collapses we can return to human relationships on a human scale…
People thinking there's a quick fix for just about anything is part of the problem, too. We have given our power away of knowing how beautiful our bodies' healing capacities are. May there be a renaissance of sorts of trusting our innate ability to heal, of being empowered by that, and of pushing back big time against BigPharma and the overuse of medical procedures and pills.
So is this typical to have someone as a CEO who knows nothing about the research & development that goes into a drug, as the person is a lawyer or lawyer with an MBA? Just sell the product whatever it is and side effects be damn is the mantra it seems.
Every time I read of the massive graft occurring in this or that segment of the US economy, I realize there's a simple solution: End the ability of the central bank to create money from nothing. Since 2008, the Fed has printed $8 trillion from thin air. It's not just crumbs now. Entire loaves are being stolen via the runaway spending which the Fed finances. Stop it.
"The truth has no side effects." Alex, this is the best "Subscribe" button promo language yet. (And it is, fittingly, so very true -- unless freedom, stated by Jesus as the consequence of knowing the truth, counts as a side effect.)
Change the law that lets them register companies abroad while doing business in the US and skirting taxes. Where's AOC when you need her? These are the rich not paying their fair share.
Alex has also exposed the fraud that "Non-Profits" are. Just a way to funnel money. On the subject are the endowments and the deduction for 501-3c foundation like Gates. Just tax avoidance. Taxes are only for us 'little people".
Oh Alex, you've struck a nerve with me. I worked at Actavis in the legal department when the Forest Labs deal was consummated. I was also there while Brent and his buddies ran Actavis, and later Allergan, into the ground. You've got this man pegged to a tee.
His game is to move from company to company, loading himself and his cronies, who he always brings with him, with stock. He then seeks out a partner to buy the company at a premium so he and his buddies can cash out. He did it at Bausch, Forest and then Actavis/Allergan. He's looking to pull the same game at Bausch again, although he may have some trouble pulling it off this time.
All along the way, he does exactly what you say, cutting employees and funding for operations to make the company look good in the short term, boosting the stock price.
He is also a bald faced liar. I remember the whole Pfizer saga. He would get up on the podium during townhall meetings and swear up and down that he wasn't trying to have the company bought by Pfizer. And this was in answer to direct questions on the topic. We all knew what he was up to, because he also isn't very good at keeping secrets.
When Pfizer fell through he took to swearing up and down that he wasn't trying to sell the company's generics division, which he finally did as a prerequisite to the Abbvie transaction.
By the way, you forgot to mention his stunt of selling the company's patents on Restasis to an Indian Tribe to avoid a patent reexamination procedure using sovereign immunity. I know a little bit about that.
Overall, not a very nice person.
It's what has perhaps been a silver lining in this past plandemic in just how corrupt the Government-Pharma-Medical-Media cabal IS. Many here have probably known this is nothing new, and has been going on for decades and decades. Just astonishing how many AMERICANS still fall prey to the slick corrupt advertising where they are told to "ask their Doctor" The coddled, entitled and victim mindset of so many is appalling. Personal responsibility and independent critical thought for a life lived well is not rocket science, and yet Pharma continues to make HUGE $$$'s because they know how to manipulate the minds of sheep
Part of many of the issues with American medicine is government involvement: from impacting the number of medical schools to interfering with the market to awful FDA behavior. But not discovering new drugs is equally atrocious.
I know this makes people eyes roll and yawn - but all our problems - from Internet Bubbles to Housing Bubbles to Bitcoin Bubbles to NFT bubbles to Pharma Bubbles - stem from the tax code. It's not that the crumbs fall, but you get to keep more of the crumbs if you do something that on the face of it doesn't make sense. Like move your "head-office" to an Ireland townhouse with 3 lawyers and cut your tax bill by half. Or buy a profitable company for $10B, load it up with $12B in debt, pay a crazy dividend, and then at 10 years, go bankrupt and lay off everyone without severance or pension. For Toys-R-Us, bankruptcy was more lucrative than a 0% bailout loan. Due to taxes.
I'm hoping enlightened writers/speakers will stop referring to "healthcare" in the US. What we have is disease care. We used to call it medical care, before the industry rebranded itself in the '70's or '80's.
Our health care system, f***ed up as it is is underwritten by the federal government, which pays most of the bills......about 55% of health care industry revenue can be traced back to federal funds, by far the largest chunks are Medicare and Medicaid, but there are dozens of programs.
As with the military industrial complex, the government doesn't look behind the curtain to see how the money is being spent. There is no oversight, no quality control, and state laws which at one time limited hospital's rights to open or close facilities, based on a public assessment of need, have almost all been repealed.
What is infuriating is the phony debate about "socialized medicine". We have socialized medicine, designed to benefit the Brent Saunders of the nation. Most people who do have insurance are hemmed in by restrictions on their choice of provider as a condition of the insurance, especially if its partially paid for by the employer. So the possibility of hospitals competing in an open market based on the quality of care they provide is, to be polite, extremely attenuated. Increasingly, regional health care markets are dominated by 2 or three providers, creating the possibility of industry cartels to foil public oversight or genuine competition, reminiscent of the US Big Three automakers deciding it was in their financial interest not to compete on anything real about their vehicles, e.g., price, performance, safety, fuel economy, until they were upended by imports that offered choices on those matters.
There's no accident here, just a long term campaign of the industry to establish bipartisan support for their gravy train, by channeling some of that generous government funding back into campaign support.
Meanwhile, in Canada:
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/analysis-quebecs-health-care-system-now-worst-ever
“ It’s not unusual for some elders to spend days lying on stretchers in Quebec ERs. …
Almost 14,000 Quebecers today have been languishing more than a year for their surgery. …”
Etc etc
Medicine seems so simple to do, but they’ve found ways to ruin it everywhere! Big government and big corporations equally. Maybe after civilization collapses we can return to human relationships on a human scale…
People thinking there's a quick fix for just about anything is part of the problem, too. We have given our power away of knowing how beautiful our bodies' healing capacities are. May there be a renaissance of sorts of trusting our innate ability to heal, of being empowered by that, and of pushing back big time against BigPharma and the overuse of medical procedures and pills.
So is this typical to have someone as a CEO who knows nothing about the research & development that goes into a drug, as the person is a lawyer or lawyer with an MBA? Just sell the product whatever it is and side effects be damn is the mantra it seems.
We lost millions from the Valeant stock disintegration. I hate this guy. You had me at Valeant.
Our system of “healthcare” is broken into a million pieces.
Every time I read of the massive graft occurring in this or that segment of the US economy, I realize there's a simple solution: End the ability of the central bank to create money from nothing. Since 2008, the Fed has printed $8 trillion from thin air. It's not just crumbs now. Entire loaves are being stolen via the runaway spending which the Fed finances. Stop it.
"The truth has no side effects." Alex, this is the best "Subscribe" button promo language yet. (And it is, fittingly, so very true -- unless freedom, stated by Jesus as the consequence of knowing the truth, counts as a side effect.)
Change the law that lets them register companies abroad while doing business in the US and skirting taxes. Where's AOC when you need her? These are the rich not paying their fair share.
Thanks Alex. I really appreciate your exposure of these pharma thugs.
Alex has also exposed the fraud that "Non-Profits" are. Just a way to funnel money. On the subject are the endowments and the deduction for 501-3c foundation like Gates. Just tax avoidance. Taxes are only for us 'little people".