for the millions of Americans who together can mandate change.” He continued: “While the whole country is in an uproar about Turing Pharmaceuticals, a one-drug start-up pharma company attempting to raise prices on a single AIDS drug, the real issue is a $100 billion monster only Wall Street could love – an extremely leveraged company that set the standard for this type of abuse, while being cheered on by a cadre of Wall Street high-rollers too wealthy to fret over their own personal health care costs, and its posse of hedge-fund operators.” A second report followed, demanding that Congress subpoena Valeant’s executives. Together the reports got Left on TV and alerted potential sources that if they knew
anything about Valeant, he was the man to leak to. While news of his short position shot around the internet, Left retreated with Zhou to read more about the company and wait for a break. At the same time, a finance journalist named Roddy Boyd was himself growing curious about Valeant. A dusky corner of the enterprise drew his attention. Valeant earned 40% of its revenue from a network of specialty pharmacies: businesses that dispense particularly expensive, complex treatments. The largest of these was called Philidor. Though it seemed like a legitimate business, with offices in Pennsylvania and logos and a website, there was something very odd about it – at least 90% of Philidor’s revenue came from sales of Valeant drugs. That October, Boyd got a scoop . Another
80 | August 2017
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