By Peter Hall of The Morning Call / November 7, 2017
Medical device maker B. Braun concealed from regulators problems with its line of ceramic-coated artificial knees and promoted the products to surgeons despite knowing they were prone to fail, a lawsuit filed in a California court alleges.
The Bethlehem-based company’s Aesculap Implant Systems subsidiary marketed the “advanced surface” ceramic coated knees as superior to standard bare metal implants, claiming they would last longer, the lawsuit says. But the ceramic joints were defective, the suit alleges, because they didn’t adhere properly to cement used to bond them with the patients’ bones.
As a result, the 25 knee replacement patients who are suing B. Braun and Aesculap in a California court were or will be required to undergo additional surgeries to correct problems with the joints or implant different devices, the suit says.
A spokesman for B. Braun, a German company with U.S. headquarters in Bethlehem, did not respond to messages Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court by attorneys Christopher K. Johnston of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, and Anthony Buzbee of Houston on behalf of the patients, who are from Louisiana, Florida and 10 other states.
According to the lawsuit, Aesculap sought and received permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell its advanced surface replacement knees by demonstrating that the devices were as safe and effective as devices that had already been approved. The process is less rigorous than the FDA’s standard medical device approval process, the suit says.
