Valeant gasping for air

Hits 52-week low

That thud coming from Wall Street on Thursday was the sound of Valeant Pharmaceuticals shares slamming against a 52-week low.

The Canadian drugmaker’s week from hell continued with a wallop from Morgan Stanley, which cut its rating on the embattled pharma company from overweight to equal-weight — saying it was wrong when it predicted its business would have stabilized by now.

On Monday, Valeant announced that three executives, including former chief finance executive Robert Rosiello, would be leaving.

Two of the departures will be effective by year end, and the third will take place early in the new year.

Just 24 hours later, Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square, one of the more bullish shareholders in the company’s medicine cabinet, sold $51.7 million worth of Valeant stock — effectively reducing his stake in the company to 7.8 percent from 9 percent.

The purpose of the sale was to “generate a tax loss in 2016” for Pershing Square investors.

Such losses are typically used by investors to offset gains elsewhere in their investment portfolio. With Valeant’s stock down 86 percent this year, selling some was an obvious choice.

Then, at a conference on Wednesday, recently appointed Chief Executive Officer Joe Papa blamed the media for the beating the company — and its stock — has taken.

“I found that in seven months [on the job], people like to write articles about Valeant,” Papa said. “They may not have any of the facts, but they like to do that.”

The barrage of bad news this week sent Valeant shares down 3.7 percent on Thursday, to $13.60.

Earlier in the day, the shares touched a 52-week low of $13.

Just 17 months ago the shares stood at $257.

Papa admitted that 2016 was a “very turbulent year” and that it is now “just like a startup company,” following a series of changes to its board and management teams.

Although Ackman has been supportive of Valeant’s structural changes since Papa replaced controversial CEO Michael Pearson in April, he still expressed regret about his Valeant investment.

“We are obviously unhappy about the Valeant investment,” Ackman wrote in a December letter to investors.