Flawed DePuy Hip Implant Had Early F.D.A. Notice - NYT's Barry Meier

A year before recalling an artificial hip, an executive at Johnson & Johnson reported in an internal e-mail that the Food and Drug Administration had refused to approve the device, after reviewing company studies that showed it had failed prematurely in “significant” numbers, requiring repeat surgeries for patients.The statements in that e-mail contrast with those made by the company in recent years about the all-metal hip. Before recalling the device amid rising failure rates in 2010, Johnson & Johnson insisted it was safe and maintained that its internal studies refuted complaints by surgeons and regulators abroad that the device was flawed. The device turned down by the F.D.A. was only sold overseas, but a companion version that was recalled at the same time by Johnson & Johnson was used in 30,000 patients in the United States.

The e-mail at issue was written in August 2009 by a vice president of a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, just days after the F.D.A. confidentially notified the device maker that it would not approve one version of the hip for sale in this country. In the e-mail, the executive, Pamela Plouhar, explained the reasons for the agency’s decision to three other top executives, including DePuy’s president at the time, David Floyd.

Ms. Plouhar reported that the device had not met F.D.A. approval standards and that a major concern was its high rate of early failure, or “revision,” during clinical trials. She also cautioned that providing the F.D.A. with more data might not change its stance and that it might take years to conduct new studies of the hip, known as the ASR, or articular surface replacement.

“The team’s concern is that given the revision rate in the ASR group that we will still not be able to demonstrate non-inferiority, with additional downside risk,” Ms. Plouhar wrote.

To win approval, a novel medical device like the DePuy hip must be shown to be reasonably safe and effective. One way to prove that is to show that it is at least as effective as, or not inferior to, a traditional hip implant.

In her e-mail, Ms. Plouhar said there had been “a significant number of revisions in the ASR group” compared with “very few in the control group.”

Many artificial hips last 15 years or more before they wear out and need to be replaced. But by 2008, data from orthopedic databases overseas showed that the ASR was failing at high rates in patients after just a few years. The device also sheds metallic debris as it wears, particles that have damaged tissue in some patients or caused crippling injuries.

A DePuy spokeswoman, Mindy Tinsley, declined to respond to specific questions about the e-mail. In a statement, she said that the e-mail was “simply a notification to senior management about the F.D.A. feedback as the company appropriately continued to study data” about the implant so that it could make responsible decisions on the behalf of patients.

Last week, Andrew Ekdahl, the current president of DePuy, said in a statement issued in response to an earlier article in The New York Times that any implication that the F.D.A. had determined there were safety issues with the device was “simply untrue.”

In her 2009 e-mail, Ms. Plouhar referred to complaints about early failures of the ASR from doctors and regulators abroad. Regulators in Australia were then pressuring DePuy to withdraw the artificial hip from the market there or face having it forced off.

“This comes at a time when ASR data from national registries (Australia and UK) is being closely scrutinized because of higher revision rates,” she wrote.

DePuy does not appear to have violated any laws by not publicly releasing the F.D.A. ruling, which was contained in a so-called nonapprovable letter. The F.D.A., as a matter of policy, does not release such decisions, saying that they may contain confidential business information.

But DePuy’s decision not to publicize the agency’s findings to doctors, patients and others while continuing to market the device may undercut its defense in the 5,000 related lawsuits pending against it and could also tarnish its reputation.

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via nytimes.com

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