Medical device’s biggest players doled out $895m to docs in 2015

The 25 largest medical device companies paid out a collective $894.6 million in general and research fees to doctors in 2015, according to data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released last month.

The CMS Open Payments program, created under the Affordable Care Act with the aim of improving transparency, requires device and drug manufacturers to report payments to healthcare providers for things like speaking engagements about their products and research grants. General payments can include such costs as travel and lodging and food and beverages.

The program, in its 3rd year, lists 11.1 million payments to 618,000 physicians and more than 1,110 teaching hospitals made by 1,455 companies. U.S. doctors and research hospitals collected nearly $7.33 billion in payments for services rendered to medical device and pharmaceutical companies in 2015.

Of the 25 largest medtech players by revenue, as reported in the MassDevice Big 100, Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and its subsidiaries outspent its nearest competitor, ZBH, by some 41.1%, putting nearly $250 million into play. In contrast, Hitachi (NYSE:HIT) laid out a paltry $67,500 (no, we didn’t miss a decimal there).

Here’s a look at how the spending broke down:^*

COMPANY	General	Research	Total
Medtronic	$186,710,917	$62,099,981	$248,810,897
Zimmer-Biomet	$164,109,228	$12,243,315	$176,352,543
Johnson & Johnson	$118,235,558	$27,577,980	$145,813,538
Stryker	$61,944,689	$6,228,735	$68,173,424
Smith & Nephew	$39,799,336	$4,686,285	$44,485,621
Boston Scientific	$29,978,774	$17,468,605	$47,447,379
Novartis (Alcon)	$26,661,756	$4,651,201	$31,312,957
St. Jude Medical	$22,268,463	$9,702,095	$31,970,558
Abbott	$15,625,279	$6,911,872	$22,537,151
Siemens Healthineers	$9,338,671	$2,978,885	$12,317,556
Becton, Dickinson	$7,814,937	$2,594,610	$10,409,548
Olympus	$6,426,484	$3,637,285	$10,063,769
GE Healthcare	$3,983,300	$3,192,007	$7,175,307
Philips Healthcare	$3,297,356	$6,686,795	$9,984,151
Baxter	$2,916,215	$1,653,439	$4,569,654
Grifols	$2,629,229	$9,753,800	$12,383,029
Terumo	$2,031,884	$42,698	$2,074,582
Bayer	$1,376,313	$854,605	$2,230,918
Fujifilm Holdings	$1,177,620	$10,000	$1,187,620
Fresenius	$1,154,228	$722,912	$1,877,140
3M Co.	$1,078,515	$16,767	$1,095,282
B. Braun	$929,745	$233,303	$1,163,048
Cardinal Health	$609,384	n/a	$609,384
Owens & Minor	$326,653	n/a	$326,653
Danaher (Beckman Coulter)	$173,418	n/a	$173,418
Hitachi	$67,462	n/a	$67,462
TOTALS	$710,665,416	$183,947,173	$894,612,589

^{* Figures include device-related subsidiaries only; for example, we omitted any pharmaceutical and consumer businesses for Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). ↩}

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