C. R. Bard

Bard markets its products and services worldwide to hospitals, individual health care professionals, extended care facilities, and alternate site facilities. An S&P 500 company with approximately 14,000 employees in 2015, Bard is perhaps best known for having introduced the Foley catheter in 1934. In 2013, Bard began negotiations to settle nearly 30,000 legal claims related to implantable vaginal meshes made by the company.[5]

C. R. Bard, Inc. was founded in New York City by Charles R. Bard in 1907. Bard's first business involved importing Gomenol, which was used to treat urinary discomfort.[6] The company formally incorporated in 1923, and three years later, in 1926, Charles R. Bard sold the company to John F. Willits and Edson L. Outwin for $18,000. Under Willits and Outwins, the company expanded into the catheter business, introducing the Foley catheter in 1934 and the America Woven Catheter in 1940.

In 1948, Bard's annual sales topped $1 million for the first time, and the company moved its headquarters from New York City to Summit, New Jersey. In 1954, a Bard scientist, Dr. DeBakey, developed the first arterial prosthesis. Three years later the company began selling Foley catheters that came in sterile packaging for the first time ever. Bard continued to innovate in the world of catheters, rolling out the Bipolar Temporary Pacing catheter in 1958 and the first latex balloon catheter in 1960. In 1961, Bard expanded beyond catheters, and began manufacturing products related to cardiology, radiology, and anesthesiology.

Bard went public in 1963 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1968. The company has introduced a variety of new health care products since that time. Its net sales first exceeded $1 billion in 1994. Around 2012, Bard acquired the company Lutonix.[7]

On April 23, 2017, it was announced that Bard would be bought by Becton Dickinson for $24 billion.[8]

Bard specializes in the manufacturing of vascular, urology, oncology and surgical specialty products.

In 2013, Bard agreed to pay $48.26 million to resolve kickback allegations filed against the company, relating to submitting false claims to Medicare. The complaint, filed in 2006, alleges Bard paid illegal kickbacks to both physicians and consumers.[9]

Vaginal mesh devices are threaded into the vagina to treat incontinence or to fortify pelvic muscles. Some women have charged that the devices "are poorly designed and contain materials that are unsafe for use in humans [and that] some require multiple surgeries to remove."[10] In 2012 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requested that Bard and other vaginal-mesh makers study rates of organ damage linked to the mesh devices. In 2013, Bard began negotiations to settle nearly 30,000 legal claims related to implantable vaginal meshes made by the company.[5] In August 2015 it was announced that Bard had agreed to pay more than $200 million to resolve at least 3,000 of the legal cases related to the devices. The settlement resolves about one-fifth of the outstanding suits related to the implants. Bard said in court filings its devices are "safe and effective."[10]

An Inferior vena cava filter, or more simply, a blood clot filter, is a device that is percutaneously placed in the vena cava to prevent blood clots from moving from lower extremity veins into the heart or lungs, which can be fatal. On December 31, 2015, NBC News released information about an investigation that they had conducted of the Bard G2 series filters which had replaced an earlier version, the Recovery filter. Introduced in 2002, the Recovery filter was associated with 27 deaths and several hundred non-fatal problems, and "a confidential study commissioned by Bard showed that the Recovery filter had higher rates of relative risk for death, filter fracture and movement than all of its competitors." However, according to the NBC report, the G2 series filters were a modified version of the Recovery filter and Bard was aware that it had "similar and potentially fatal flaws" shortly after it was put on the market. But instead of recalling the replacement filters, they were kept on the market for five years. According to Bard and FDA records, at least 12 deaths and hundreds of problems have been linked to the G2 series filters.[11]

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