With investors growing increasingly edgy over the lingering absence of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.'s ailing chairman and CEO Michael Pearson – whose hospitalization late last month due to severe pneumonia came in the midst of the company's struggle to rebuild its image after being mired in a scandal over its business practices – the firm's board on Jan. 6 appointed former chief financial officer Howard Schiller to take the helm in the interim.
Investors were initially skittish on the news about Valeant's move to substitute Schiller for Pearson – pushing shares of the...