Device Company Payouts Mostly Royalties
Regarding, “Device Companies Post How Much They Paid Orthopedic Surgeons” today’s Health Blog revealed that the millions of dollars paid to orthopedic surgeons are mostly in the form of royalty payments (74% of total payouts), at least, for Zimmer:
Zimmer’s CFO broke down his company’s payments during a talk today at a Piper Jaffray health-care conference. According to a slide in the CFO’s presentation, 74% of the outlays were for royalties, 11% for consulting, 10% for “research & clinical†work, 4% for “education & other†and 1% for travel and expenses, Dow Jones reports.
If the docs did indeed own the intellectual property that device companies are licensing to use, then royalty payments make perfect sense. Still, from the blog comments, some remain skeptical of the rationale behind such high payouts.
