Negative Valeant Pharma (VRX) Analyst Has a Long, Strange History with the Stock

Traders point out that the Wells Fargo analyst that put the Sell rating on Valeant Pharma (NYSE: VRX) this morning has a long, strange history with the stock.

The analyst in question, David Maris, was fired at Bank of America almost a decade ago after rightly pointing out wrong-doing at Biovail in 2003. Biovail was later acquired by Valeant.

At the time, Maris pointed out the absurdity of Biovail blaming an earnings miss on a truck crash that was carrying a large quantity of its drugs. This led to Biovail filing a lawsuit against Maris, Bank of America, SAC Capital and Gradient Analytics, claiming a conspiracy to drive down its stock price. However, it was Biovail and its management perpetrating the fraud which led to an eventual settlement with the SEC. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but after initially sticking by Maris, Bank of America fired him at the end of 2006. Bank of America claimed the firing of Maris had nothing to do with the Biovail situation.

You can read about the strange case at DealBook.

Shares of VRX are down 6.3% today to $88.07.

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