Applied Medical Resources Corp. scored a huge legal win against larger rival Medtronic in another David versus Goliath case for Orange County this month.<\/p>\n
A California federal jury on Feb. 5 awarded Applied Medical $382 million in damages in the antitrust case after finding that Medtronic used discounted product bundles to monopolize the market for advanced bipolar devices.<\/p>\n
Applied maintained that Medtronic\u2019s strategy made it economically impossible for the Rancho Santa Margarita firm to compete on price with their rival device, Voyant, which, like Medtronic\u2019s LigaSure, is used to seal blood vessels during surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope this ruling compels large suppliers to re-evaluate their business practices,\u201d Gary Johnson, group president of advanced energy at Applied Medical, told the Business Journal over email.<\/p>\n
Applied Medical was represented by Knobbe Martens\u2019 Stephen Jensen, Stephen Larson, Joseph Re, Adam Powell, Kendall Loebbaka and Cheryl Burgess.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepresenting Applied Medical for more than two decades has been an honor, and this verdict sends a strong message: healthcare providers deserve a truly competitive market for lifesaving medical technologies free from exclusionary contractual barriers,\u201d Jensen said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the latest success for the Irvine-based Knobbe, the same law firm that won Masimo Corp. a $634 million victory in a patent infringement case against Apple Inc. last year after a long-standing dispute between the companies involving Masimo\u2019s patented heart monitoring technology. Knobbe Martens is the second biggest attorney firm in Orange County, according to the Business Journal\u2019s annual ranking based on the number of attorneys.<\/p>\n
Medtronic said that it was \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the verdict and plans to appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe remain confident that our business practices deliver the best product to our customers and at the value they expect,\u201d Medtronic said in a statement to the Business Journal.<\/p>\n
\u201cSurgeons choose Medtronic\u2019s LigaSure device time and again because it outperforms Applied\u2019s Voyant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Medtronic, the largest medical device maker in the world, is valued at $130 billion. The company reported worldwide revenue of $33.5 billion for the full year (NYSE: MDT).
Medtronic, which is based in Minnesota, has major operations in Orange County, including a neuroscience unit in Irvine and a cardiovascular unit in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n
Competing Laparoscopic Surgery Devices<\/p>\n
This month\u2019s victory comes three years after Applied Medical filed the suit against Medtronic in 2023.<\/p>\n
The two devices at the center of the case are Applied Medical\u2019s Voyant Intelligent Energy System and Medtronic\u2019s LigaSure technology. The competing devices cut tissue and seal blood vessels during laparoscopic and open surgeries.<\/p>\n
Applied Medical alleged that Medtronic \u201cengaged in anticompetitive conduct designed to maintain its large monopoly,\u201d including bundling its products together at a discount in contracts with hospitals and group purchasing organizations (GPOs).<\/p>\n
According to the suit, Medtronic paid \u201ckickback\u2019\u2019 fees to these organizations in exchange for being their sole source of advanced bipolar devices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus, the anticompetitive bundling prevents hospitals from purchasing advanced bipolar devices from an at least equally efficient competitor, like Applied, because the competitor cannot offer a low enough price to offset the entire total bundled exclusionary \u2018discount,\u2019\u201d according to the 2023 complaint by Applied Medical.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Medtronic defended the contracts as standard in the medical device industry and said they were not exclusive and didn\u2019t require customers to buy at a certainlevel, according to Reuters. Following a three-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, the jury found that Medtronic violated the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act and the California Cartwright Act, according to Knobbe Martens.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Applied Medical said that its immediate focus is on preventing Medtronic from appealing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe jury heard an extensive evidentiary record supporting its unanimous verdict,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cApplied Medical intends to seek injunctive relief to prohibit Medtronic from enforcing these unlawful restrictions, so that hospitals can begin accessing the choices they have been denied for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Second Largest Medical Device Company in OC<\/p>\n
Applied Medical, established in 1987, manufactures medical instruments for minimally invasive procedures for more than 75 countries. Its portfolio includes more than 700 products for cardiac\/vascular, colorectal, orthopedic, gynecologic and urologic surgeries.<\/p>\n
The company has remained privately held since its founding by Chief Executive Said Hilal. Counting over 3,500 employees at its Rancho Santa Margarita headquarters and facilities in neighboring cities Lake Forest and Irvine, it\u2019s Orange County\u2019s second-largest medical device maker by employee count behind Edwards Lifesciences Corp. Companywide, Applied Medical employs 5,533 people, as of last April.<\/p>\n
Applied Medical, which manufactures many of its products in-house, launched Voyant in 2015.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s newest product, announced in 2024, was a nylon specimen retrieval bag used to collect tissue during laparoscopic surgical procedures.<\/p>\n
Last month, a partnership was announced between Applied Medical and MellingMedical to bring the company\u2019s minimally invasive devices to federal healthcare providers serving veterans, active-duty military personnel and their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud to partner with MellingMedical to expand access to our surgical solutions throughout the federal healthcare system,\u201d Applied Medical Group President Nabil Hilal said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Applied Medical Resources Corp. scored a huge legal win against larger rival Medtronic in another David versus Goliath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-180334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}