Bausch had last year said it was spinning off its eye-care unit, Bausch + Lomb, into a separate publicly listed company, seven years after acquiring it for nearly $9 billion.

The unit includes eye-health products like contact lenses and surgical devices. Its Bausch + Lomb segment raked in $1.24 billion in the fourth quarter.

The drugmaker has not made a final decision yet and could still opt to spin off or keep the business, the Bloomberg report said.

The company did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

It has had calls from activist investor Glenview Capital Management for Bausch to spin-off Bausch + Lomb by year-end.

(Reporting by Trisha Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)