DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Medtronic Inc. (MDT) has named former Aon Corp. (AOC) executive
D. Cameron Findlay as its new general counsel, as the big
medical-device maker addresses concerns about its relationships
with physician consultants.
Government authorities have been looking into questions about
the propriety of these relationships with doctors, especially
orthopedic surgeons.
Findlay, who will assume the post effective Aug. 24, will
"participate in the leadership of our initiative focused on the
development of new standards for clarity and transparency in our
relationship with physicians," said Medtronic Chairman and Chief
Executive Bill Hawkins.
Questions have been raised about Medtronics' efforts to enlist
doctors to promote its spinal products, especially the Infuse bone
growth product, which is the subject of a Food and Drug
Administration safety warning related to life-threatening
complications associated with its use in the cervical spine.
Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been
scrutinizing the relationship between academics and industry, has
detailed Medtronic's payments to University of Minnesota spine
surgeon David Polly, who received a Department of Defense grant to
evaluate Infuse.
The Justice Department also is investigating the work of Timothy
Kuklo, an Army surgeon and Medtronic consultant who has been
accused by the Army of fabricating the results of a study that
reported advantages in healing the legs of injured soldiers when
Infuse was used.
Medtronic also recently settled substantially all
intellectual-property litigation affecting design and delivery
systems for its stents, which are little pieces of scaffolding that
hold arteries open. As part of the settlements, the company agreed
to pay $400 million to Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and $42 million to
evYsio Medical Devices LLC, from which Medtronic had licensed stent
patents.
Findlay was Aon's general counsel for six years after serving as
deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor from 2001 to 2003.
He previously was a deputy assistant to the president and counselor
to the chief of staff at the White House under President George H.
W. Bush and a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice
Antonin Scalia.
-By Kathy Shwiff, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2357;
Kathy.Shwiff@dowjones.com