DOW JONES NEWSWIRES 
 

Medtronic Inc. (MDT) has named former Aon Corp. (AOC) executive D. Cameron Findlay as its new general counsel, as the big medical-device maker addresses concerns about its relationships with physician consultants.

Government authorities have been looking into questions about the propriety of these relationships with doctors, especially orthopedic surgeons.

Findlay, who will assume the post effective Aug. 24, will "participate in the leadership of our initiative focused on the development of new standards for clarity and transparency in our relationship with physicians," said Medtronic Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Hawkins.

Questions have been raised about Medtronics' efforts to enlist doctors to promote its spinal products, especially the Infuse bone growth product, which is the subject of a Food and Drug Administration safety warning related to life-threatening complications associated with its use in the cervical spine.

Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been scrutinizing the relationship between academics and industry, has detailed Medtronic's payments to University of Minnesota spine surgeon David Polly, who received a Department of Defense grant to evaluate Infuse.

The Justice Department also is investigating the work of Timothy Kuklo, an Army surgeon and Medtronic consultant who has been accused by the Army of fabricating the results of a study that reported advantages in healing the legs of injured soldiers when Infuse was used.

Medtronic also recently settled substantially all intellectual-property litigation affecting design and delivery systems for its stents, which are little pieces of scaffolding that hold arteries open. As part of the settlements, the company agreed to pay $400 million to Abbott Laboratories (ABT) and $42 million to evYsio Medical Devices LLC, from which Medtronic had licensed stent patents.

Findlay was Aon's general counsel for six years after serving as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor from 2001 to 2003. He previously was a deputy assistant to the president and counselor to the chief of staff at the White House under President George H. W. Bush and a law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Antonin Scalia.

-By Kathy Shwiff, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2357; Kathy.Shwiff@dowjones.com