Top Device Companies

Kimberly-Clark Maps Plan To Offset Spending Expansion With Cuts

Kimberly-Clark plans to continue spending more than it gets in sales through 2015 even as it sets out to make $500 million worth of reductions over the next two years. The cuts include reducing manufacturing and supply-chain costs and reliance on a global procurement organization it plans to form. Kimberly-Clark already has counted as much as $450 million in savings from a three-year cost-cutting initiative that ends this year. Recent expansion of the firm’s health-care business is expected to cover some increased costs. (Click here for more– a subscription may be required)

“Kimberly-Clark Plans More Cuts, Increased Marketing” – Wall Street Journal (3/22/10)

Medical device manufacturers facing many challenges: from the rising clout of group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to payment bundling and physicians' growing allegiance with hospitals in product price negotiations. Get all the answers now in new Medtech Insight's new 24-page Special Report: Medical Device Landscape: How regulatory changes and cost control measures are reshaping the industry. Available for purchase now!

Kimberly-Clark Among Makers Facing Slew Of Patent-Claim Suits

Kimberly-Clark Health Care and other device makers and pharmaceutical companies have become targets of “a cottage industry” of suers predicted by an appeals court. Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble and other companies in the health-care products business already face dozens of lawsuits over continued use of expired patents on their labels. The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ruled last December that companies could be sued for falsely representing their products as protected by patents after those patents have expired. In its ruling, the court acknowledged a flood of lawsuits was likely to follow. (Click here for more)

“Pfizer, P&G Sued As Part Of New ‘Cottage Industry’” – Bloomberg (2/26/10)

Medical device manufacturers facing many challenges: from the rising clout of group purchasing organizations (GPOs) to payment bundling and physicians' growing allegiance with hospitals in product price negotiations. Get all the answers now in new Medtech Insight's new 24-page Special Report: Medical Device Landscape: How regulatory changes and cost control measures are reshaping the industry. Available for purchase now!

Kimberly-Clark Pain Pumps Linked to Chondrolysis In 150-Plus Suits

Kimberly-Clark’s I-Flow pain pumps and similar devices have been linked in lawsuits with chondrolysis, the death of cartilage in human joints that allows bones to grind on each other. More than 150 suits have been filed around the country, one of them culminating in a $5.5 million judgment awarded in an Oregon court. Lawyers for plaintiffs aver that makers of the pumps disregarded safety in bringing their products to market. I-Flow acknowledges it has been named in 191 cases involving 412 patients, 80 of which were dismissed. (Click here for more)

“Studies Link Rare Ailment To Pain Pumps” – New York Times (1/26/10)

Hot Off the Presses: Medical Device Market 2009: Interventional Cardiology - This 86-page Special Report from IN VIVO identifies the most important trends in cardiology devices in recent years, teases out the critical decisions that drove those developments, and takes you behind the scenes and into the minds of the architects of these new technologies and business strategies. Find out more...

Kimberly-Clark Completes I-Flow Buy, Unit To Try For Rest Of Shares

Kimberly-Clark’s Boxer Acquisition unit plans to buy all of the shares of I-Flow remaining from the parent’s earlier purchase of the other 90.8 percent. Kimberly-Clark’s tender offer for the shares of I-Flow, maker of drug-delivery devices as well as surgical pumps and catheters, closed Nov. 23, leaving 9.1 percent of the shares not offered and bought. I-Flow is to become a unit of Kimberly-Clark Health Care. (Click here for more)

“Kimberly-Clark To Buy Medical Device Maker I-Flow” – AP (11/24/09)

JUST PUBLISHED: Medical Device Market 2009: Interventional Cardiology - Find out who’s going beyond catheters and drug-eluting stents in this vibrant space with this 86-page Special Report previously published in IN VIVO: The Business & Medicine Report. Order yours now!

Kimberly-Clark Buys Pain-Management Devices Of Baylis Medical

Kimberly-Clark bought Baylis Medical’s pain-management business for its minimally invasive chronic spinal pain devices. The amount of the purchase was not disclosed, but a spokesman for Kimberly-Clark said some Baylis employees might be moved from Canada to Dallas. Kimberly-Clark has been the U.S. distributor for Baylis pain-management devices for the past eight years. (Click here for more)

“Kimberly-Clark Buys Baylis Medical Unit” – Dallas Business Journal (10/05/09)

Medical Device Manufacturers’ Employee Training Programs Are Under FDA Scrutiny -- Click Here To Find Out Why...

Get the week's top medical device news sent directly to you. Sign up for the FREE once-a-week email newsletter from Top Device Companies.com

Coviden Sued By Kimberly-Clark Over Tracheal Tube Device Patent

Covidien is being sued by Kimberly-Clark on grounds its Bermuda subsidiary violated a technology patent with its SealGuard tracheal tubes. Covidien’s Mallinckrodt unit was accused in the suit of infringing on Kimberly-Clark’s seals said to do a better job of allowing a patient to breath. Kimberly-Clark wants a judge to issue an injunction against marketing SealGuard until the dispute is resolved. Along with Covidien and Mallinckrodt, Covidien subsidiaries Tyco Healthcare Group and Nellcor Puritan were named in the suit. (Click here for more)

“Huggies Makers Sue Covidien Over Respiratory Concept Patent” – Royal Gazette (4/30/09)

Get the week's top medical device news sent directly to you. Sign up for the FREE once-a-week email newsletter from Top Device Companies.com