Rosy Earning Picture at Stryker Corp. Doesn’t Tell Full Story of Defective Hip Implants, other Legal Woes
February 20th, 2008 joshua
It seems the only good news Stryker Corp. can report is about its earnings. Those of us not benefiting from the company’s recently announced 2007 net income of $1.01 billion tend to hear the other side of the controversial medical device maker.
But according to headlines since New Year’s Day, Stryker cut corners on the way to those proud profits. Most recently, a U.S. appeals court revived a lawsuit against Stryker that accused the company of infringing a patent for implantable plates to fix wrist factures, Bloomberg News reports.
The appeals judge ruled on Jan. 29 that a lower judge was incorrect in his decision that Stryker didn’t infringe the patent. Instead, he ruled that TriMed Inc. held a patent for a plate used with distal radius fractures, the most common wrist fracture.
Last year may have been a good one for profits at Stryker it was one wrought with controversy – make that controversies.
In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration sent the company two warning letters concerning unsafe conditions at, first, its Ireland facility, and then later, at its New Jersey facility. Both are use to make replacement hip and knee joints. Currently, the facility in Cork, Ireland is not making these parts, limiting the world’s supply of replacement joints.
Late last month, Stryker announced it was recalling two hip implant components made under the company’s Trident line.
