Zimmer Holdings, Inc. says there is a “Trojan Horse” being built in Amarillo, Texas to sneak sales reps into the operating room to attack their business and steal their money and customers. Who, allegedly, are the Greeks in this Trojan War? Stryker Corporation.
Cody Stovall Comes to Amarillo
The tale begins in February 2008, when a medical device sales rep from New Mexico named Cody Stovall joined Zimmer Southwest in Amarillo, Texas.
Zimmer Southwest was a former distributor of Zimmer products in the southwestern portion of the U.S. Stovall was assigned to be a sales representative in territory made up of Amarillo and the surrounding areas. He joined Team Brittain, led by long-time Zimmer sales representative, Carla Brittain. His job was to assist Brittain in managing and maintaining her Zimmer territory.
Brittain, along with other tenured Zimmer representatives from outside Amarillo, allegedly mentored and trained Stovall and introduced him to Zimmer’s long-standing and, according to Zimmer lawyers, “near-permanent” customer relationships.
Zimmer Invites Stovall Inside
In October 2012, Zimmer decided to bring its southwestern U.S. sales force inside and offered Stovall employment as a sales representative directly with Zimmer. One year later, Zimmer adjusted the Amarillo territory, allegedly at Stovall’s request, and split the territory between Stovall and Brittain.
After the split, Stovall was assigned and compensated for sales of reconstructive orthopedic implants to all of Zimmer’s surgeon customers in the Amarillo territory, with the exception of five specific surgeon customers who Brittain had called on for years.
By 2013, according to court documents, Stovall was earning nearly $240, 000 a year and revenues generated by surgeon customers within his territory generated sales in excess of $6 million in that year.
Stovall Defects to Stryker, Zimmer Sues
But, according to a lawsuit filed against Stovall and Stryker in a Michigan federal district court on January 29, 2014, Stovall resigned from Zimmer on January 10, 2014 and went to work for Stryker.
In addition, says Zimmer, Stovall and Stryker came up with a scheme to steal Zimmer’s customers and, ultimately, revenue, by recruiting the top competitive sales representatives from Zimmer and by offering them a guaranteed six figure salary and a $30, 000 bonus for every $500, 000 in business they convert from their former Zimmer customers to Stryker.
Zimmer says they found out about the plan when Stovall allegedly bragged about the scheme to his former colleagues when he solicited them to join him, and when Stryker pitched this exact scheme to current Zimmer sales representative Carla Brittain—telling her, she too could switch to Stryker and attend surgeries with her former Zimmer customers by “selling” a Stryker RegenKit Platelet-rich Plasma spray.
The Plasma Spray Trojan Horse
Here is where Zimmer’s complaint gets original. According to Zimmer’s lawyers, Stovall initiated his and Stryker’s attack on Zimmer before he ever resigned from Zimmer. Says Zimmer’s lawyers, the plan of attack called for Stovall to sell the Stryker biologic plasma spray product in an effort to place him into joint replacement surgeries with his former Zimmer surgeon customers in violation, allegedly, of his post-employment restrictive covenants.
Discussion
This is a fascinating development. In my practice we've seen similar outcomes with the revised protocol. The key differentiator seems to be patient selection criteria. Has anyone else noticed the correlation with BMI thresholds?
Great point. I'd push back slightly on the conclusion, the sample size in the cited study is too small to draw population-level inferences. That said, the directional signal is compelling and worth a larger RCT.
We implemented a similar approach last year. Early results are promising but we're still gathering 12-month follow-up data. Happy to share our protocol if anyone is interested.
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