Sometimes they do sort of have a gun to their head. A lot of times these acquisitions are via hostile takeovers approved by a board of directors/shareholders a

Sometimes they do sort of have a gun to their head. A lot of times these acquisitions are via hostile takeovers approved by a board of directors/shareholders against the will of senior leadership (much less the rank & file). Who cares what Valeant does after the acquisition? People care. When Pfizer purchased King Pharmaceuticals (you've probably never heard of King, but they patented the Epi-Pen epinephrine auto-injector), they got rid of about 450 of 550 employees, keeping only a few compliance & research folks along with the sales team. When Valeant purchased Salix (patent holder for Xifaxin, which is one of Valeant's only winners right now), they laid off about 800 of 1100 staff (again, keeping primarily the sales team). Valeant used about $11b in debt + Valeant stock (no cash) to purchase Salix. The debt has been downgraded to junk status and the stock has lost 90% of its value. Tell me this was good for anyone (even the Valeant side!).