Eight U.S. Doctors Received a Combined $81 Million in Payments from Medtronic and St. Jude Medical in 2014

A review of payments of $1 million or more by Minnesota medical device makers Medtronic PLC and St. Jude Medical shows that eight doctors across the nation received a combined $81 million from the firms. The companies paid out more than $211 million to doctors and hospitals in payments not related to research in 2014, StarTribune reports.

The information was published last Tuesday by the federal Open Payments database for 2014 and was viewed by StarTribune.

Sanjay S. Yadav, who was founder and CEO of a company known as CardioMEMS that was acquired by Little Canada-based St. Jude, was paid $15.4 million as part of the acquisition of the company, making it the largest single payment made by the Minnesota companies, according to StarTribune.

The Open Payments program was mandated by the Sunshine Act provisions of the Affordable Care Act (AFA). The program was launched due to concerns over the fact that major companies like Medtronic and St. Jude have, in the past, improperly used secret payments to influence doctors, hospitals, and research–an allegation that Ireland-based Medtronic flatly denies, StarTribune reports.

“We are proud of our work with physicians and have policies to ensure our interactions with physicians are principled and appropriate,” spokeswoman Cindy Resman said in an e-mail to StarTribune. “Appropriate collaboration … gives us insights to understand patient needs, advance technologies, and train other physicians how to safely use the products and therapies we develop.”

In response to criticisms that financial incentives create conflicts of interest in research programs for drugs and medical devices, the University of Minnesota last month banned many of the types of payments reported Tuesday, according to StarTribune.

The medical device industry employs tens of thousands of workers in Minnesota, and Medtronic and St. Jude in 2014 accounted for the largest non-research payments to doctors across the U.S. The eight doctors who received payouts from the companies each received more than $1 million. Two of the doctors received payouts from St. Jude; the other six physicians were paid by Medtronic. All of the St. Jude payments were related to CardioMEMS acquisition. Yadav, the top recipient, received additional payments for a total of more than $22 million, StarTribune reports.

The 2014 edition of the federal database shows how more than 600,000 doctors and 1,100 hospitals received a total of $6.49 billion in payments in a single year. StarTribune reports those payments covered more than one dozen categories of spending, including consulting payments, gifts and honoraria, royalties, stock dividends, and travel and dining.

All of the Medtronic payments were for royalties, primarily stemming from the company’s spine division, which has been under fire for promoting its InFuse bone graft device for off-label purposes. Last June, Humana sued Medtronic, alleging the company paid $210 million to market InFuse to noted doctors, who then promoted the device for use in unapproved neck and spine surgeries. The insurer claimed in the lawsuit, viewed by AISHealth, that it was tricked into paying for the off-label uses of InFuse due to Medtronic’s actions.

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