Inspectors with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday slapped St. Jude Medical with a warning letter accusing the medical device maker of failing to properly investigate problems with the batteries in its implantable defibrillators and the cybersecurity of its at-home monitoring equipment.
The inspectors said that company officials systematically underestimated the true risks facing heart-device patients, even after one person died in 2014. Further, seven patients were implanted with defibrillators after St. Jude recalled more than 400,000 of the devices. On cybersecurity, the letter said the company failed to prove that it made sure a recent software patch would fix potential vulnerabilities before rolling it out to the public.
