Edwards Lifesciences Corp. (NYSE:EW) gained ground on a case involving a former cardiac consultant who claimed that the medical device giant owed more than $3 million for using the consultant’s name in marketing materials.
Dr. Gerald Buckberg signed on as an Edwards consultant in 1987, agreeing to allow the company to use his name in sales pitches and marketing materials for development of a retrograde cannula, a device that’s inserted into a coronary vein to pump fluids into the heart in the opposite direction of blood flow.
The contracts were set to expire in 2008, but Buckberg claims they never did, since the company continued to benefit by using his name in sales and promotional materials.
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A new court found that the $3 million granted by a lower court was too high, and concluded that Buckberg is entitled to 7 percent royalties on patented products until the expiration of the patents, according to a court filing.
The matter has been remanded for recalculation of damages.
Indicted former Synthes exec says prosecution can’t prove intent
Attorneys for Thomas Higgins, a former executive at Swish medical device maker Synthes Inc., told a federal court that prosecutors shouldn’t try to prove that Higgins knew that human bone cement trials were illegal since he’s already admitted to unintentionally breaking the law.
Federal prosecutors want four former Synthes executives to spend up to a year in jail after they pleaded guilty to their roles in an un-authorized bone cement trial in which three patients died during surgery.
The bone cement was not approved for the procedures, allegedly due to evidence that it might cause potentially fatal blood clots in the lungs.
If the former execs draw prison time, they’ll be the first sentenced under the 1975 Park Doctrine, held accountable as "responsible corporate officers" whether they intended to break the law or not.
