Just a month after a surprise shakeup at Wright Medical Group saw CEO Gary Henley abruptly resign and CTO Frank Bono fired, the company replaced three more senior executives.
The Arlington, Tenn.-based maker of orthopedic devices for the foot and ankle market said in a regulatory filing that it had accepted the resignations of senior vice president, general counsel and secretary Raymond Kolls; vice president of clinical & regulatory affairs Alicia Napoli; and senior vice president for EMEA commercial operations Cary Hagan.
All three executives were said to have resigned without “good reason,” according to the filing.
Wright also announced the end of an internal investigation by its board, aided by outside counsel, as required by its deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of N.J.
Wright Medical agreed in October 2010 to pay nearly $8 million to settle charges that it ran a kickbacks scheme to drive up sales of its hip and knee implants. The feds charged Wright with using consulting gigs with physicians to funnel alleged kickbacks to the docs. The settlement (PDF) also includes a year-long probation of sorts, during which the AG agrees not to prosecute as long as Wright "satisfies its obligations," according to the release. Those obligations include making changes to its consulting arrangements with doctors. An independent monitor will keep tabs on the company during its 12-month probation.
It wasn’t the first concession that New Jersey feds have wrung from orthopedic device makers. Last year, four orthopedic device makers cleared federal criminal charges and a fifth “satisfactorily completed” its non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark.