The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) is asking for new regulations to protect device manufacturers from lawsuits bankrolled by third-party funders.
Ahead of a U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing on the topic tomorrow, AdvaMed General Counsel and Chief Policy Officer Chris White submitted a letter in which he said “most mass tort litigation against medical device manufacturers is fueled by banks, private equity firms and hedge funds.”
AdvaMed wants new federal regulations of mass tort advertising like laws passed in Tennessee and Texas.
“The influx of billions of dollars of third-party litigation funding has fundamentally changed the dynamics of mass tort litigation,” White wrote. “These financiers are injecting huge amounts of investment capital into creating litigation regardless of the merits,” White wrote in the letter. “They start by funding mass marketing campaigns on TV, radio, internet, and social media to recruit large numbers of plaintiffs to the litigation. The lawyers then leverage the sheer number of filings, regardless of the merit of each claim, into consolidated proceedings and pressure companies into mass ‘inventory settlements.’ In short, these lawsuits are manufactured purely to feed a business model that takes advantage of the civil justice system.”
Tomorrow’s hearing will include testimony from product liability lawyer Aviva Wein at Johnson & Johnson, which faces thousands of lawsuits alleging the company’s talc-based products can increase the risk of ovarian cancer.
Hernia mesh products were the most targeted medical devices in 2022, according to ad spending research provided to AdvaMed by Washington, D.C.-based X Ante. CPAP machines were No. 2 due to the massive Philips Respironics recall.
Other top mass tort ad targets included military earplugs made by 3M — which announced a $6 billion settlement last month — as well as pelvic mesh, knee implants (related to the Exactech recall), J&J subsidiary Ethicon’s Physiomesh, Medtronic’s Minimed insulin pumps, Wright Profemur hip implants, Paragard and Mirena intrauterine devices (IUDs), inferior vena cava (IVC) filters, Stryker’s Cartiva toe implants and Bayer’s Essure permanent birth control.