Guidant Tries to Keep Prices Secret

In May 2006, a lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania by Public Citizen on behalf of Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI), the nation's leading independent medical product testing organization, the right to publish information about Guidant's medical devices. ECRI's guide is intended to assist hospitals, health care consultants, group purchasing organizations, health plans, and government agencies with making decisions about the cost-effectiveness of various competing medical devices.

Guidant recently developed a business model requiring all of its customers to keep its product prices confidential. ECRI and others members was unaware of this new business model or consent to be bound by confidentiality clauses in Guidant's contracts. Guidant insists that the public is bound to obey its contracts with customers and therefore ECRI should not be allowed to publish Guidant's product prices.

Guidant's attempt to suppress publication of product prices also contravenes the strong public policy favoring price transparency. Under Guidant's business model, even pacemaker patients and implanting physicians are forbidden from knowing the price of the device. The exclusion of the data from ECRI's publication puts consumers at a disadvantage and is a detriment to the healthcare system. (Public Citizen)