A former DePuy Synthes sales representative is facing charges for allegedly defrauding a Boston, Massachusetts, area hospital for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Former Medical Device Sales Rep Faces Fraud Charges
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According to the indictment, Matthew Capobianco purportedly worked for DePuy Synthes as a territory sales manager and team lead from 2012 through 2019. During that time, he allegedly promoted, sold, and supported DePuy Synthes spine products used in spine surgeries.
According to the indictment, from January 2016 through June 2017 Capobianco allegedly caused DePuy Synthes to bill the Boston area hospital for “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of medical products that he falsely represented surgeons had used in spine surgeries” at the hospital.
In the indictment prosecutors allege that Capobianco falsely represented that the Boston area hospital surgeons used products in their surgeries that they did not use and used more expensive products than they actually used. Capobianco purportedly did this to “boost his sales numbers, increase his compensation, and attain higher rankings within the DePuy’s sales organization.”
According to the indictment, Capobianco was purportedly banned from the Boston area hospital “following an incident relating to the sterilization status of a peel pack.” It was alleged that Capobianco showed a DePuy sales representative several DePuy implants (blue connectors) that he pulled from his pocket. The connectors were purportedly loose in Capobianco’s bare hands and “not in a container or peel pack of any kind.” He then allegedly brought a peel pack of blue connectors into an operating room for use in a spine surgery that day.
The sales representative was purportedly concerned about the sterilization of the blue connectors and reported it to the hospital. Later that evening, special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation allegedly interviewed Capobianco about implant tampering and interference with the hospital’s sterilization process. Capobianco allegedly gave false statements during the interview.
Capobianco is facing eight counts of wire fraud and one count of making material false statements.
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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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