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MONTREAL — Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. has surpassed Royal Bank of Canada as the country’s largest company by market value after shares shot up in the wake of solid second quarter results.

Valeant surged more than nine per cent to a 52-week-high of $341.02 per share to reach a market value of $116.3 billion on the Toronto Stock Exchange, eclipsing RBC’s $108.9 billion.

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Quebec’s pharmaceutical giant has advanced 105 per cent this year, and the stock has shot past the analysts’ 12-month target price of $336 per share. Eighteen analysts have a ‘buy’ rating on the stock, four have it on ‘hold’ and one has a ‘sell’ recommendation, Bloomberg data shows.

“We don’t see this business slowing down any time soon,” wrote Alex Arfaei, an analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns, in a note Thursday.

Health care stocks are the best-performing sector on the S&P/TSX index over the past year, up 118 per cent during that period.