J&J wants $25m over ‘contaminated’ fake medical tools
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has accused a medical supplier of distributing counterfeit surgical tools that are “bacterially contaminated and critically defective”.
In the complaint, J&J alleged that Illinois-based eSutures had sourced the devices from a “known counterfeiter” based in Delhi, India.
The allegedly counterfeit tools include hemostats, surgical clips, and fixation devices that are designed to be left in the body after surgery.
According to J&J, which owns the Ethicon medical devices brand, the “counterfeits being trafficked by eSutures pose a serious risk to the health and lives of unsuspecting patients”.
“eSutures's supplier explicitly informed eSutures that it sold counterfeit Ethicon medical devices, and esutures worked with the supplier to import the counterfeits without attracting scrutiny,” the complaint said.
Ethicon said that during a seizure in Delhi, they found the owner of the company making the counterfeit tools “on the floor of his non-sterile and unsanitary apartment, inserting the fake surgical devices into counterfeit Ethicon packaging with his bare hands”.
J&J also claimed that where eSutures did sell genuine Ethicon products, it obtained them fraudulently.
“On numerous occasions, eSutures conspired with employees of surgery centres and other medical facilities to purchase Ethicon surgical devices under their employer's heavily discounted contracts with Ethicon and divert them to eSutures,” the complaint read.
J&J has asked the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to issue an injunction barring eSutures from further infringing the Ethicon trademarks, as well as punitive damages of at least $25 million.
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