Valeant might actually take some of Bill Ackman’s advice. The hedge fund investor, who recently bailed out of his longtime Valeant stake, suggested last year that the scandal-ridden company change its name to make a fresh start in the reputation department.
According to CEO Joe Papa, that’s exactly what Valeant might do. And we’re taking suggestions.
At the company’s annual meeting Tuesday, Papa said, given Valeant’s prominent public beating—for huge price hikes, iffy specialty pharmacy relationships, federal and state probes and Congressional hearings—the company is “looking at alternatives” to its current corporate brand, Bloomberg reported.
Ackman raised the idea on CNBC last November, and Papa is now saying Valeant is “very serious” about the potential change.
One of the options floated last year, according to CNBC’s sources, was dropping “Valeant” in favor of the more high-quality name of its eyecare division Bausch & Lomb. Several other names were in discussion at the time.
Corporate names are no small matter, and there are plenty of branding experts who are paid the big bucks to pluck a new one out of the ether. We’ve seen some of the results of those brainstorming sessions in recent years, with Zoetis as Pfizer’s animal health spinoff, AbbVie as Abbott Laboratories’ pharma child and Baxalta, the Baxter division set free in 2015 and since snapped up by Shire.
But forget experts for a bit and join with us in brainstorming a few possibilities. Here's the form for your write-in vote; file your nominations by Thursday at midnight. We’ll pick our favorites and survey readers for the final pick Monday.