Valeant Pharmaceuticals hires Paul Herendeen as CFO

Valeant Pharmaceuticals appointed Paul S. Herendeen as CFO and executive vice president of finance on Aug. 22.

Herendeen, who has been a CFO since 1998, will replace Robert L. Rosiello as Valeant’s CFO and will report to CEO John Papa. Rosiello will remain at Valeant as executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, according to a news release.

For the past two years, Herendeen has been CFO of Zoetis, an animal health company. He also has experience as CFO of Warner Chilcott, a specialty pharmaceuticals company, and MedPointe, a privately held healthcare company.

As of mid-morning on Aug. 22, shortly after Valeant announced Herendeen’s hiring, Valeant’s common stock increased more than 8 percent to $31.06 per share. Still, it’s a long way from the $242.14 per share price from September 2015.

Herendeen takes over at Valeant during a precarious time for the company. Federal prosecutors opened an investigation into Valeant in October 2015.

Valeant received attention last year after buying the rights to two heart drugs (Nitropress and Isuprel) and increasing their list prices by 525 percent and 212 percent, respectively. In May, Valeant promised to cut the prices of those drugs by up to 40 percent.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York was investigating allegations that Valeant and a specialty pharmacy hid their relationship to defraud health insurers. Valeant issued a news release in response to the article and said it would not comment on the investigation.

Tim Casey,

Executive Editor

Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.

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