Rumor has it the debt-ridden company is looking to sell its Bausch + Lomb surgical product assets to Carl Zeiss Meditec for as much as $2 billion, but Valeant has a track record of talking about more deals than it completes.

Amanda Pedersen

The deal rumor mill is hot this week with reports that Valeant Pharmaceuticals may be looking to sell its Bausch + Lomb surgical product assets to Carl Zeiss Meditec. Neither company has commented publically on the potential deal.

According to a Bloomberg report, the surgical eye assets could be worth as much as $2 billion, but an official agreement is likely to be weeks away, if the rumored asset sale is true.

If is the key word here. Valeant has a track record of talking about more deals that it completes, and just about seven months ago, another rumor circulated that Carl Zeiss was one of several firms bidding for Valeant's eye surgery assets. That deal, as with many others involving the troubled pharmaceutical company, never panned out.

Valeant has had a rough couple of years and has been looking for ways to reduce its $28.9 billion in debt. The company has reported disappointing sales, particularly in the Bausch + Lomb division, over the past two years. Government probes into its pricing has also contributed to the company's rough patch. Valeant bought Bausch + Lomb in 2013.

The healthcare conglomerate made headlines last year for its failed hostile takeover attempt of Allergan. In the era of mega M&As, it's easy to understand Valeant's desire to get big fast. But while there may be a method in the company's madness, that method has attracted a lot of unwanted attention from lawmakers, federal investigators, and the media.

The company has a history of buying out its pharmaceutical rivals and medical device companies with healthy revenue, like Bausch + and then jacking up the prices of the acquired products and laying off the affiliated R&D staff. According to a 2015 New York Times report, instead of fueling growth through new product development, Valeant tends to orchestrate hostile takeovers of dozens of companies, accumulating $30 billion of debt in the process. In at least two cases, the company bought old heart drugs and immediately raised the prices by 525% and 212%.

But aggressive drug pricing tactics are not the only problem Valeant has faced since its acquisition of Bausch + Lomb. The Canadian firm also had to answer to the FTC after it bought Paragon Holdings I in May 2015. Paragon and Bausch + Lomb were head-on competitors in the sale of materials to make gas-permeable, hard contact lenses. By acquiring Paragon, Valeant reportedly gained control of 85% to 90% of the supply chain for the lenses.

The list doesn't end there though. The U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed the company around the same time regarding payments and agreements between Bausch + Lomb and medical professionals related to its Crystalens intraocular lens implant and its Victus femtosecond laser platform for cataract surgery, according to a 2015 SEC filing. That news came at a time when the DoJ appeared to be stepping up its game in terms of policing the medtech industry. The agency had been trying to hold executives accountable for their company's off-label promotion practices.

Valeant's troubles seem to parallel those of Theranos, with similar lessons arising from each of their apparent  failures, as Qmed reported in November 2015.

Amanda Pedersen is Qmed's news editor. Contact her at [email protected].

[Image courtesy of Pixabay]