J&J may settle another group of ASR metal hip implant cases

J&J may pay $250 million more to settle ASR Hip Implant Cases/Bloomberg BusinessWeek
by Jeff Feely

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ:US) may pay more than $250 million to resolve suits over its ASR hip implants that were excluded from a $2.5 billion settlement of similar claims last year over the device’s failure, two people familiar with the accord said.

J&J, the world’s largest seller of health-care products (JNJ:US), is weighing whether to settle more than 1,000 lawsuits over removals of the recalled hip implants that occurred after August 2013, said the people, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the accord. The hips were made by J&J’s DePuy unit.

The company is considering extending the same settlement terms that covered patients who had their ASR implants removed earlier than last summer, the people said. Under that accord, J&J agreed to pay an average of about $250,000 per surgery and cover related medical costs to resolve about 8,000 cases.

“This is a sign that J&J is trying to get a solid handle on its whole ASR problem,” said Carl Tobias, who teaches product-liability law at the University of Richmond in Virginia. “They are not done paying yet, but they are moving in the right direction.”

If J&J resolves the additional suits, it will have settled about 75 percent of its total U.S. caseload. The total cost of the settlements over ASR, which stands for articular surface replacements, may exceed $4 billion by the time J&J resolves the remaining implant cases, Tobias said. The accord doesn’t cover hip litigation outside the U.S.

Hip Implants

J&J and DePuy recalled 93,000 ASR hip implants worldwide in August 2010, saying 12 percent failed within five years. Internal J&J documents showed 37 percent of ASR hips failed after 4.6 years. The failure rate in Australia in 2012 was found to be 44 percent over seven years of use