Valeant Pharmaceuticals

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. is a publicly traded multinational specialty drugs company based in Laval, Quebec, Canada. The company focuses on purchasing the rights to older generic drugs and raising prices, sometimes to hundreds or thousands of dollars per pill. Valeant's main drug markets include neurology, dermatology and infectious disease with several drugs in late-stage clinical trials and several currently on the market. In addition, Valeant has a portfolio of more than 500 products from its prior history as a group of specialty chemical and radiochemical research, development and supply companies with a history stretching back to the 1960s. Valeant's strategy of exponential price increases on lifesaving medicines has been described by Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger as "deeply immoral" and "similar to the worst abuses in for-profit education."

Valeant sells a wide range of drugs, including over-the counter medications and medical devices, as well as prescription drugs such as antidepressant Wellbutrin XL. Kinerase, which uses kinetin as active ingredient, is one of the most popular products of Valeant.

Bill Ackman

William Albert Ackman (born May 11, 1966), is an American hedge fund manager. He is the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management LP, a hedge fund management company. Ackman is considered a contrarian investor. He considers himself an activist investor.

Early life

Ackman was raised in Chappaqua, New York, and he is the son of Ronnie I. (née Posner) and Lawrence David Ackman, the chairman of a New York real estate financing firm, Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group. His family is Jewish.

Education

In 1988, he received a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude in History from Harvard College. His thesis was "Scaling the Ivy Wall: the Jewish and Asian American Experience in Harvard Admissions." In 1992, he received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Career

In 1992 Ackman founded the investment firm Gotham Partners with fellow Harvard graduate David P. Berkowitz. This investment firm made small investments in public companies. In 1995, Ackman partnered with the insurance and real estate firm Leucadia National to bid for Rockefeller Center. Although they did not win the deal, the high-profile nature of the bid caused investors to flock to Gotham Partners, growing it to $500 million in assets by 1998.

Mad Money

Mad Money is an American finance television program hosted by Jim Cramer that began airing on CNBC on March 14, 2005. Its main focus is investment and speculation, particularly in publicly traded stocks. In a notable departure from the CNBC programming style prior to its arrival, Mad Money presents itself in an entertainment-style format rather than a news broadcasting one.

Cramer defines "mad money" as the money one "can use to invest in stocks ... not retirement money, which you want in 401K or an IRA, a savings account, bonds, or the most conservative of dividend-paying stocks."

Mad Money replaced Dylan Ratigan's Bullseye for the 6 p.m. Eastern Time slot. On January 8, 2007, CNBC began airing reruns of the show at 11 p.m. Eastern Time, on Monday through Friday, and at 4 a.m. Eastern Time, on Saturdays.

In March 2012, the program became a part of what was formerly branded as NBC All Night in the nominal 3:07 a.m. ET/2:07 a.m. timeslot on weeknights, replacing week-delayed repeats of NBC's late night talk shows. In that form, only the video for the program was presented on a 16:9 screen with gray branded windowboxing and pillarboxing, with all enhanced business information, including the CNBC Ticker, removed. Because of the scheduling of local station's 4 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. newscasts to air Early Today depending on how a station schedules its overnight programming (even if it airs at the regular time in the Eastern and Pacific time zones for instance, seven minutes would have to be cut-off to fit in Early Today and a local newscast starting at 4:30 a.m.), it is subject to local pre-emption, including by NBC O&O's.