It develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products and branded generic drugs, primarily for skin diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, eye health and neurology.

This led to an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, causing its stock price to plummet more than 90 percent from its peak, while its debt surpassed $30 billion.

[3] In 1959, Yugoslavian immigrant Milan Panić, who had defected to the US three years earlier, founded ICN Pharmaceuticals (International Chemical and Nuclear Corporation) in his Pasadena garage.

The company retained the Valeant name and J. Michael Pearson as CEO, but was incorporated in Canada and temporarily kept Biovail's headquarters.

[22] In May 2011, former Biovail Corporation Chairman and CEO Eugene Melnyk was banned from senior roles at public companies in Canada for five years and penalized to pay $565,000 by the Ontario Securities Commission.

[45][46] Valeant and Pershing Square were subsequently accused of insider trading prior to their Allergan bid, and eventually settled the case in 2017.

They were sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted on four charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

[68] An important part of the growth strategy for Valeant under Michael Pearson had been the acquisition of medical and pharmaceutical companies and the subsequent price increases for their products.

[69][70] Valeant's strategy of exponential price increases on life-saving medicines was at the time described by Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger as "deeply immoral" and "similar to the worst abuses in for-profit education.

"[71] This strategy had also attracted the attention of regulators in the United States,[70] particularly after the publication in The New York Times of an article on price gouging of specialty drugs.

[79][80] In October 2015, the Federal Trade Commission began an investigation into Valeant's increasing control of the production of rigid gas permeable contact lenses.

Valeant's acquisition of Bausch & Lomb in 2013, and Paragon Vision Services in 2015, is alleged to have given the company control of over 80% of the production pipeline for hard contact lenses.

[82][83] In their 2015 annual report filed on April 29, 2016, Valeant said that it was the "subject of investigations" by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Attorney's Offices in Massachusetts and New York, the state of Texas, the North Carolina Department of Justice, the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, and the House's Committee on Oversight and Reform, and had received document requests from the Autorite de Marches Financiers in Canada and the New Jersey State Bureau of Securities.

[85][86] On April 27, 2016, Bill Ackman, J. Michael Pearson, and Howard Schiller were forced to appear before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging to answer to concerns about the repercussions for patients and the health care system faced with Valeant's business model.

[90][88] In 2017, Ackman's Pershing Square fund, which held a major stake in the company, sold out for a reported loss of $2.8 billion.

[91][92] On April 25, 2016, Valeant named Perrigo chief executive Joseph Papa as a permanent replacement for Pearson, and entrusted him with turning around the company.

[94] By January 2017, the company had sold its skincare brands to L'Oréal for $1.3 billion[95] and its Dendreon biotech unit to Sanpower for $819.9 million.

[99][100] Under Papa's leadership, by early 2018, the company had become profitable again; had settled the Allergan case for less than expected; and had lowered its debt by $6.5 billion.

[101][102] The company had divested itself of 13 non-core businesses, reducing its debt to $25 billion, and had settled or dismissed 70 pending lawsuits, including the Allergan insider trading case.

[103] On January 8, 2018, the company announced that its Bausch + Lomb unit had received a CE Mark indicating conformity with health, safety, and environmental protection standards from the European Commission for the distribution of its Stellaris product in Europe.

[112] In May 2023, Judge Richard G. Andrews upheld the court's original ruling, which blocks the FDA from approving Norwich Pharmaceuticals' 550 mg rifaximin generic until October 2029.

Judge Andrews' decision bolsters his previous ruling that Norwich's abbreviated new drug application for rifaximin infringed on Bausch Health's Xifaxan patents for the reduction in risk of hepatic encephalopathy recurrence.

[113] In June 2023, the company's oral health business OraPharma partnered with Alex Rodriguez to launch its "Cover Your Bases" gum disease awareness campaign.

[116] In July 2023, 404 Media reported that Bausch Health had been hacked and 1.6 million registration numbers that are issued by the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration to healthcare providers for the prescription of controlled substances were stolen and being used for ransom.