Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Activist Investor Bill Ackman Defends Support For Drug Maker Valeant
William A. Ackman, the activist investor, has described his billion-dollar bet and continuing crusade against the nutritional supplements company Herbalife as a 鈥渕oral obligation.鈥 In at least one presentation, he nearly cried onstage and said that if his Herbalife trade was successful, he would give the profits to charity because he would consider them 鈥渂lood money.鈥 (Sorkin, 11/9)
U.S. prosecutors plan to ask the Canadian and British governments to extradite officials with an online pharmacy on charges of smuggling $78 million worth of mislabeled, unapproved and counterfeit cancer drugs into the country to sell to doctors. Fourteen companies and individuals from Canada, the United Kingdom, Barbados and the U.S. are accused of participating in the conspiracy that involved falsifying customs declarations for shipments from the U.K., according to the criminal indictment. (Volz, 11/9)