A Medical Device Daily

AngioDynamics (Queensbury, New York) said it settled a longstanding patent dispute with Diomed (Andover, Massachusetts) over varicose vein laser treatment technology.

AngioDynamics will give Diomed a one-time payment of $7 million as part of the settlement. Last March, a federal jury in Boston found that devices made by AngioDynamics and Vascular Solutions (Minneapolis) infringed a Diomed patent. At the time, AngioDynamics said the jury awarded combined damages of just under $12.5 million.

"We elected to end what has been a major distraction for our management team at a cost to our company that is less than the amount Diomed was awarded by the judge after the jury verdict in late March of last year," said AngioDynamics President/CEO Eamonn Hobbs.

As part of the settlement agreement with Diomed, all claims and appeals by each side will be dismissed following the $7 million payment and final satisfaction of the monetary judgment related to the alleged infringement of U.S. patent No 6,398,777.

Following the jury verdict and subsequent monetary judgment award, AngioDynamics recorded a $9.6 million litigation provision in 3Q07 and the provision had increased to $10.2 million primarily as a result of interest accrued on the award.

Diomed filed an action against AngioDynamics and Vascular Solutions in 2004 (Medical Device Daily, March 8, 2004).

In other legalities:

• Miami resident Rita Campos Ramirez, 60, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in a $170 million scheme to defraud Medicare, said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of the Southern District of Florida.

The scheme represents the largest known individual case of Medicare fraud in the history of the program.

Campos was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Judge Alan Gold. In addition to the prison sentence, Gold ordered that the defendant be placed on three years supervised release following her release from prison; forfeit $207,000, her three homes and an automobile; and pay $105 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Campos pleaded guilty on Aug. 28, 2007, to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud and one count of submitting false claims to Medicare. As part of her plea, Campos admitted that between October 2002 and April 2006 she owned and operated R&I Medical Billing, a medical billing company that specialized in submitting bills to the Medicare program on behalf of HIV infusion clinics.

Campos admitted that she knowingly submitted roughly $170 million in fraudulent medical bills to Medicare on behalf of 75 HIV infusion clinics in Miami-Dade County that were part of the scheme. Infusion clinics serve HIV patients by providing prescribed medications intravenously.

The Medicare program paid about $105 million of the $170 million in fraudulent bills submitted by Campos, with Campos personally receiving $5 million for her role in the fraud.

Additionally, seven Miami-area residents have been indicted in connection with the fraud scheme.

Ana Alvarez, 54, Mariela Rodriguez, 39, Aisa Perera, 42, Beatriz Delgado, 48, Angel Rodriguez, 40, Sandra Mateos, 43, and Carmen Gonzalez, 33, were all charged in federal district court in Miami with conspiracy to defraud the U.S., to cause the submission of false claims, to pay healthcare kickbacks, and conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.

The indictment also seeks forfeiture of assets held by all named defendants. Mariela Rodriguez, Perera, and Delgado also were charged with four counts of submitting false claims to the Medicare program. Alvarez also was charged with three counts of submitting false claims and Mariela Rodriguez was charged with one count of perjury.

• Boston Scientific (Natick, Massachusetts) reported that U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed proceedings filed by former shareholders of Guidant (Indianapolis) against several of Guidant's former directors and officers.

Boston Scientific acquired Guidant in 2006 for $27 billion (Medical Device Daily, March 10, 2006). The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties.

Barker had earlier dismissed consolidated securities class action proceedings against Guidant and several of its former officers and directors. Judgment in favor of Guidant and its former directors and officers was entered in both cases. The plaintiffs in both actions have the right to appeal.

The shareholder lawsuit against former directors and officers of Guidant claimed the defendants made money selling shares they allegedly knew were artificially inflated.

The suits involved tens of millions of dollars of stock sales by executives and directors ahead of a 2005 recall of flawed implantable defibrillators and could remove a substantial legal burden that the Boston Sci has had to absorb since it acquired Guidant.

Boston Scientific still is facing more than 1,100 individual lawsuits and about 75 class-action suits linked to Guidant's defibrillator recalls.