Pharma giant Valeant is compared to Enron, stock craters

Valeant is crashing.

On Wednesday, shares of the pharmaceutical giant were down as much as 27% after a brutal report from short-selling firm Citron Research asked, "Could this be the Pharmaceutical Enron."

Shares were briefly halted due to volatility following the report.

Citron's report follows what's been a rough week of news for Valeant, which got hammered after reporting earnings on Monday morning that were poorly-received by investors largely due to commentary from CEO Mike Pearson about the company's strategy shift.

Pearson told analysts on the call that the company would increase spending on research & development or potentially spin-off entities, a decided change from the company's strategy of acquiring smaller competitors and increase the price of their drugs.

On Monday, a separate report from the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation took a look at Valeant's relationship with specialty pharmacy company Philidor.

As SIRF lays out, Valeant sued a company named R&O Pharmacy for $70 million, though these companies had never done business together.

Here's the brutal chart.

More to come ...