(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson faces a potentially more damaging and costly sequel to the $3 billion recall of its ASR all-metal artificial hips two years ago, one of the most expensive medical device failures in U.S. history.
A successor to ASR, the Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip system has nearly 1,600 lawsuits pending in U.S. courts. Doctors who are tracking large groups of patients with both products estimate that more than 10 percent of the Pinnacle all-metal hips will have failed in the next two to three years.
