Olympus rejiggers medical biz

Olympus (TYO:7733) last week announced its plan to rejigger its medical device business with an eye toward gaining share in the U.S. market. The Japanese conglomerate weathered an accounting scandal in 2011 after firing its first foreign CEO, Michael Woodford, after he blew the whistle on unexplained payments worth around $1.7 billion and demanded the resignation of the former chairman and vice president. In September 2012 the company and 3 former executives pleaded guilty in Japan to cover-up charges. By 2014 Olympus was caught up in an FDA warning about power morcellators, which were found to pose a cancer risk; the federal safety watchdog that year ordered so-called “black box” warnings for the devices. In 2015 the issue was duodenoscopes, which were implicated in rash of deadly “superbug” infections caused by inadequate sterilization during reprocessing. Olympus and a former senior executive pleaded guilty last month to failing to file required adverse event reports involving infections connected to the ‘scopes and continuing to sell the devices in the U.S.; the company paid $80 million in fines and another $5 million in criminal forfeiture. Then, in May 2016, the company agreed to pay roughly $306 million to 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the federal government to resolve kickbacks allegations stemming from a whistleblower lawsuit accusing it of doling out grants, fellowships, consulting payments, free trips, payments for recreatio...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Endoscopic / Arthroscopic Featured Wall Street Beat Olympus Source Type: news