Lawsuit alleges Medtronic illegally marketed stent device for unapproved use

A complaint filed in federal court last week "alleges Medtronic Inc. illegally marketed a relatively obscure medical device called a biliary stent in ways not approved by federal regulators," The (Minneapolis-St. Paul) Star Tribune reports. "The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston by two former employees who claim they were harassed and then fired by the Fridley-based medical technology giant when they complained to their managers that so-called 'off-label' use of the stent could be harmful to patients." The whistleblowers allege that Medtronic "pressured and incentivized" its salespeople to push the device's use to treat vascular conditions instead of for their approved use related to tumors in several organs (Moore, 2/24).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.