Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $302m over pelvic mesh implant ads

theguardian.com:

A California appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that Johnson & Johnson must pay penalties to the state for deceptively marketing pelvic mesh implants for women.

Johnson & Johnson had appealed in 2020 after superior court judge Eddie Sturgeon assessed the $344m in penalties against the US pharmaceutical company’s subsidiary, Ethicon.

Sturgeon found after a non-jury trial that the company made misleading and potentially harmful statements in hundreds of thousands of advertisements and instructional brochures over nearly two decades.

California’s fourth district court of appeals issued a ruling Monday that $42m in penalties assessed for the company’s sales pitches to doctors were unjustified because there was no evidence of what the sales representatives actually said. As a result, the court reduced the amount to $302m.

However, the appeals court said Sturgeon received ample evidence that Ethicon knowingly deceived both physicians and patients about the risks posed by its products, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Ryan Carbain, a Johnson & Johnson spokesperson, told the Chronicle that the company would appeal the appeals court ruling to the state Supreme Court.

“Ethicon responsibly communicated the risks and benefits of its trans-vaginal mesh products to doctors and patients and in full compliance with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws,” he said.

The instructions for use in all of the company’s pelvic mesh implant packages “falsified or omitted the full range, severity, duration, and cause of complications associated with Ethicon’s pelvic mesh products, as well as the potential irreversibility and catastrophic consequences,” presiding justice Judith McConnell, of the appeals court, said in a 3-0 ruling