Johnson & Johnson report suggested 40 pc hip implants would fail in 5 years

Johnson & Johnson never released those projections for the device, the Articular Surface Replacement, or ASR, which the company recalled in mid-2010. But at the same time that the medical products giant was performing that analysis, it was publicly playing down similar findings from a British implant registry about the device’s early failure rate.

The firm’s analysis suggests the implant is likely to fail prematurely over the next few years in thousands more patients in addition to those who have already had painful and costly procedures to replace it.

The internal Johnson & Johnson analysis is among hundreds of internal company documents expected to become public as the first of over 10,000 lawsuits by patients who got an ASR prepares to go to trial this week. The episode represents one of the biggest medical device failures in recent decades. The trial is expected to shed light on what officials of Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopaedics division knew about the device’s problem before its recall and the actions they took or did not take.

The trial is expected to begin Friday in California Superior Court in Los Angeles. Last year, the firm took a $3 billion special charge, much of it related to medical and legal costs associated with the device.

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