As a health care provider, I live every day at the front lines of a system that is stretched thin and pulled in too many directions. Patients are getting sicker, clinicians are burning out, and hospitals are under relentless pressure to do more with less. The one thing we all agree on, across party lines, specialties, and institutions, is that the cost of health care in the United States is unsustainable. But if we are serious about healing health care, we have to confront a hard truth: Device manufacturers are actively standing in the way of meaningful cost savings.
The antitrust lawsuit brought by Innovative Health against Biosense Webster, part of Johnson & Johnson MedTech, was a case in point. Now, the verdict has made it something more: a warning.
In this lawsuit, Innovative Health alleged that Biosense Webster illegally tied essential clinical support services to the purchase of its new catheters. For context: Innovative Health reprocesses Biosense Webster catheters under FDA-regulated processes and resells them to hospitals at a fraction of the original cost. These reprocessed catheters are used in cardiac mapping procedures with the CARTO 3 system, and the savings can be substantial: hundreds of thousands of dollars per hospital each year, with some hospital programs reporting annual savings of more than $1 million.
But rather than embrace a proven, safe, and environmentally sound method of reducing costs and waste, Biosense Webster refused to support hospitals that used reprocessed devices. Innovative Health said Biosense Webster had made it clear: If you don’t buy brand-new catheters from us, you are on your own. Clinical support services, services that should be part of a broader mission to improve outcomes, were being withheld to protect profits.
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In May 2025, a unanimous federal jury agreed with Innovative Health. After two hours of deliberation, it found in the company’s favor on every claim presented at trial and awarded $147 million in damages. The U.S. District Court later trebled that amount and entered final judgment for $442 million, along with permanent injunctive relief.
To be clear: Biosense Webster’s behavior is not just anticompetitive; a jury found it unlawful. One could further argue it is unethical.
Every day, we ask patients to make difficult choices about their care. We triage resources. We fight insurance denials. We delay hiring. But we’re told there is nothing to be done about the exorbitant prices we pay for medical devices, because manufacturers need to “maintain innovation” or “support quality.”
Let’s be clear: Refusing to support hospitals that seek legitimate, FDA-regulated ways to reduce waste and cost is not innovation; it is obstruction.
We see it over and over again, whether it is brand-name drugs kept just out of reach by evergreening tactics or surgical tools priced like luxury goods. The result is the same: suppliers putting their bottom lines ahead of patient access. And ultimately, no one wins.
Nor was Biosense Webster an isolated case. In February 2026, another California federal jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding in favor of Applied Medical on every claim presented against Medtronic. The case concerned advanced bipolar surgical devices, including Medtronic’s LigaSure products and Applied Medical’s competing Voyant devices. The jury found that Medtronic had unlawfully monopolized the market through tactics that included below-cost pricing, bundled discounts, and de facto exclusive dealing. It awarded Applied Medical $382 million.
Applied Medical’s case showed how a dominant manufacturer can use the breadth of its product portfolio as a weapon. Hospitals that evaluated or adopted Applied Medical’s devices could risk losing discounts on unrelated Medtronic products. Evidence presented at trial showed that Medtronic targeted hospitals trying Voyant and impeded conversions even after successful product evaluations. A much smaller competitor could offer an alternative device, but it could not replicate the vast portfolio Medtronic used to construct its bundles.
The parallels are hard to miss. In the Biosense Webster case, the lever was access to mapping support, something an independent catheter reprocessor could not provide on its own. In the Medtronic case, it was access to discounts across an enormous portfolio of medical devices, something a much smaller competitor could not match. In other words, use something the dominant manufacturer offers and make a rival’s product economically painful to buy.
Two juries, less than a year apart, rejected that marketing ploy. Both deliberated for roughly two hours. It is difficult not to read these verdicts, and the district courts’ willingness to enforce them, as a sign that judges and juries are losing patience with monopolistic behavior in the medical device industry.
These verdicts should represent a signal to manufacturers that they cannot use services only they control to punish hospitals for purchasing lawful, lower-cost alternatives. Fair competition with reprocessors is part of doing business in a modern health care system that desperately needs relief.
But let’s not pretend a courtroom victory is the endgame. This fight should not even be necessary.
The health care system should not have to drag multinational corporations into court to get access to cost-saving tools that are proven safe and effective. And yet, here we are.
The irony is that by thwarting reprocessing and other forms of legitimate competition, manufacturers could be sealing their own fate. As costs rise and margins shrink, more hospitals will be forced to consolidate, close service lines, or shutter entirely. When care deserts grow and patients delay treatment, device companies lose too, because a shrinking health care infrastructure means fewer procedures, fewer customers, and fewer lives saved.
If manufacturers want to remain credible stakeholders in the health care system, they must evolve beyond extraction and toward collaboration. They should be enabling cost savings, not blocking them. Supporting hospitals, not squeezing them. Advancing health, not protecting margins.
There is still time to shift course. There is still time to be part of the solution. But the clock is ticking, and the status quo is no longer acceptable.
I am rooting for companies like Innovative Health and Applied Medical as they stand up to industry titans because their legal victories represent something bigger: the idea that common-sense savings should be celebrated, not punished. If we cannot get behind that, then we are not serious about fixing health care.
We cannot heal a broken system if its most powerful players refuse to help. And right now, too many manufacturers are part of the problem.
It is time they become part of the solution.
Vince Figueredo is a cardiologist.
