Medtronic Inc. (NYSE:MDT) said California attorney general Jerry Brown is demanding documents from its cardiac rhythm management business, making Brown the second AG this year to subpoena the Minneapolis medical device monolith.
Medtronic said Brown wants documents “relating to the Company’s cardiac rhythm medical devices, including revenue, sales, marketing and promotional documents,” according to a regulatory filing. The Golden State’s top legal eagle also wants reimbursement records, clinical trial data and registration information and records of any payments “or items of value” to customers. Brown sent the subpoena Sept. 16, according to the filing.
New Jersey’s AG, Anne Milgram, also subpoenaed Medtronic in June, according to the filing. Milgram also wanted clinical trial records, including information about “financial arrangements with certain physicians and health care providers, and clinical research done by certain physicians and health care providers.” Medtronic said it would comply with both subpoenas.
Brown’s subpoena was the second legal salvo the company withstood this week. A federal judge in Minnesota excoriated Medtronic over its motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit filed against it over allegedly defective pacemaker batteries.
Milgram has other medical device makers in her sights. She demanded documents related to the “financial interests of clinical investigators who performed clinical studies for DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. and DePuy Spine, Inc.,” the Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiaries, in May, according to securities filings.
And Milgram wants the Garden State to impose tougher gift ban rules to crack down on medical device industry payments to physicians.