Johnson & Johnson and its DePuy Orthopaedics unit agreed on Tuesday, January 22, to pay $120 million to resolve defective hip implant claims filed by 46 U.S. states over the company's metal-on-metal (MoM) hip implant complications.
Attorney general of the 46 states asserted that DePuy was engaged in unfair and deceptive marketing practices while extensively promoting ASR XL and Pinnacle Ultamet hip implants as safe to use. According to a statement by New York Attorney General Letitia James, DePuy must maintain a post-market surveillance program and update procedures to monitor complaints about their hip implant devices. Back in 2010, DePuy announced a voluntary recall of 93,000 of its ASR hip implants due to reports that 12% of them failed within five years. The company paid at least $2.47 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits filed by patients who got the device removed.
There are more than 10,400 lawsuits filed against the company in the U.S. over its Pinnacle hip replacement system. The consolidated lawsuits in the multidistrict litigation (MDL 3:11-MD-02244, In Re: DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc., Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation) are overlooked by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade since 2011 in the Northern District of Texas. Similar lawsuits are filed against other hip device manufacturers in the U.S. involving defendants Zimmer, Stryker, Biomet, Wright, and Smith & Nephew.
