J&J subsidiary to pay $9.75 million to resolve bribery allegations

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BOSTON (AP) A subsidiary of health care company Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay nearly $10 million to settle allegations that it violated federal and state law by providing free products to a surgeon for the to induce the use of its products in proceedings, prosecutors said on Friday. .

As part of the settlement with DePuy Synthes, the company acknowledges and accepts responsibility for providing the surgeon with implants and instruments for spinal surgeries from 2013 through 2018, federal prosecutors said.

We have cooperated fully with the government throughout its investigation of the allegations and have been credited for this cooperation in the settlement,” Johnson & Johnson said in a statement. This settlement avoids further lengthy legal proceedings. We are committed to ensuring that our employees conduct their business in a manner consistent with our credo and all laws and regulations.

DePuy, headquartered in Raynham, Massachusetts, manufactures and distributes medical devices, including spinal implants.

The surgeon, whose name was redacted in the agreement, performed more than 20 operations during multiple trips to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, during which he used approximately $100,000 worth of DePuy products that the company’s sales representatives had provided to him.

The surgeon and the hospitals where the procedures were performed did not pay for the products.

Prosecutors said DePuy provided them to induce the surgeon to use the company’s products in spine surgeries performed on Medicare and Medicaid patients in Massachusetts, in violation of the anti-kickback law, which seeks to ensure that judgments of medical providers are based on best interests. patients and not compromised by inappropriate financial incentives.

Illegal bribes can seriously distort medical judgment as well as the medical device market,” Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said in a statement. The millions of patients who depend on our healthcare system deserve impeccable medical decisions. »

About $7.2 million of the $9.75 million settlement will go to the federal government and about $2.5 million to the state. More than $1.8 million from the federal side will go to the whistleblower who filed the original lawsuit in 2017 under a statutory provision that allows private parties to sue on behalf of the government and share in any recoveries.

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