Within the last few years, a little known company called Biotronik has cornered the market on pacemakers and defibrillators at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, Last year, 250 of the 263 patients, or 95 percent, who had a heart device implanted at the hospital center got one made by Biotronik.
The company’s hold at the hospital center is all the more striking because its implants were not used there before 2008, and its national share of the heart-device market barely exceeds 5 percent, according to industry estimates.
The devices’ sudden popularity was apparently not left to chance. In mid-2008, Biotronik hired several cardiologists who implant heart devices at the Las Vegas hospital as consultants, paying them fees that may have reached as high as $5,000 a month, company documents reviewed by The New York Times indicate. Those doctors then did the rest. Meanwhile, the hospital’s chief executive said she never asked during the hospital’s switch to Biotronik whether those physicians had a financial connection to the company.
A federal investigation is examining Biotronik’s marketing and sales practices, according to a company e-mail. While a lawyer for Biotronik confirmed the inquiry, he declined to elaborate.
Read the rest of the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/health/03implant.html
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