Biovail

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Biovail Corporation

Type	Public (TSX: BVF NYSE: BVF)
Founded	1982
Founder	Eugene Melnyk Rolf Reininghaus
Headquarters	Mississauga, Ontario
Area served	North America
Key people	William M. Wells (CEO) Dr. Douglas J.P. Squires (Chairman)
Industry	Biotechnology Pharmaceutical
Products	Medicine Drugs
Market Cap	US$ 1.81 Billion (2008)
Revenue	▼ US$ 842.82 Million (2007)
Operating income	▼ US$ 188.01 Million (2007)
Net income	▼ US$ 195.54 Million (2007)
Total assets	▼ US$ 1.782 Billion (2007)
Total equity	▼ US$ 1.297 Billion (2007)
Employees	1,533 (2008)
Divisions	Biovail Pharmaceuticals Canada (BPC) Biovail Contract Research Biovail Corporation
Subsidiaries	Biovail Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BPI) Biovail Technologies Ltd. Biovail Laboratories - Dorado Biovail Laboratories - Carolina Biovail Laboratories International SRL Biovail Technologies (Ireland) Limited
Website	Biovail.com

Biovail Corporation (TSX: BVF, NYSE: BVF) is Canada's largest pharmaceutical company, operating internationally in all aspects of pharmaceutical products. Its major production facility is located in Steinbach, Manitoba.

1 Corporate governance
2 SAC/Gradient Analytics lawsuit and SEC complaint
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of Biovail are: Michael Van Every, Laurence Paul, Douglas Squires, Lloyd Segal, and William Wells.

[edit] SAC/Gradient Analytics lawsuit and SEC complaint

In March 2006, CBS program 60 Minutes featured Biovail in a story about its lawsuit against hedge fund SAC and Camelback (now known as Gradient Analytics), among others. According to Melynk , "there’s a group of people that got together and essentially attacked the company by putting out false reports, and we’re just fighting back for our shareholders." ^[1]

The alleged conspiracy began with Camelback, an Arizona stock-analysis firm that advertises that it publishes impartial financial reports on companies to help investors evaluate stocks. In the spring of 2003, the hedge fund SAC asked them for a report on Biovail. Darryl Smith, Mark Rosenblum, Demetrios Anifantis, and Robert Ballash, former Camelback employees, alleged that Camelback had allowed their client SAC to determine the content and timing of their reports on Biovail.^[1]

Camelback said those former employees were lying and disgruntled, that Anifantis and Ballash were fired because of unethical conduct; Smith for poor performance; Rosenblum was laid off. These four say they were let go after they complained to their superiors about Camelback’s practices. SAC denied all the charges in Biovail's lawsuit and said that the decline in the Biovail's stock was due to earnings shortfalls and regulatory investigations.^[1]

In March, 2008, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Biovail and some of its former officers, alleging that "present and former senior Biovail executives, obsessed with meeting quarterly and annual earnings guidance, repeatedly overstated earnings and hid losses in order to deceive investors and create the appearance of achieving earnings goals. When it ultimately became impossible to continue concealing the company's inability to meet its own earnings guidance, Biovail actively misled investors and analysts about the reasons for the company's poor performance." Biovail settled for $10 million US. ^[2] Gradient Analytics, successor to Camelback, issued a press release stating that the SEC’s suit "confirms the validity of Gradient’s critical analysis of Biovail but raises serious questions about how companies retaliate against analysts with threats, intimidation, and lawsuits."^[3]^[4]

60 Minutes has been accused of botching the Biovail story by the Columbia Journalism Review's Audit columnist and the New York Times's Joe Nocera, who felt Lesley Stahl accepted Biovail's conspiracy theories about short sellers without proper consideration.^[5]^[6]