ODT’s Most-Read Stories This Week—May 4

Finances and fraud were the favorites among ODT website visitors this past week.

Leading the way was Integrity Orthopaedics, which garnered pageviews with word of its $20.6 million Series B funding round. Piper Sandler Merchant Banking and an undisclosed existing investor led the financing, which Integrity intends to use to broaden commercial launch of its initial rotator cuff repair product in the United States. The company envisions revolutionizing soft tissue repair with its patented technology, hoping for stronger surgical repair and better long-term healing. 

Smith+Nephew and Stryker both enticed cybervisitors to the site with solid first-quarter sales results and rosy full-year outlooks, while Adarsh Gupta, M.D., drove traffic with his federal conviction on healthcare fraud and false statements charges. Gupta of Sewell, N.J., swindled $5.4 million from Medicare through a fraudulent orthotic equipment scheme, a federal jury decided; according to court documents, the doctor signed thousands of prescriptions for orthotic braces for more than 2,900 Medicare beneficiaries who did not need the devices. Gupta, 51, identified the beneficiaries through telemarketers, according to trial evidence, then briefly speak to the beneficiaries by phone before prescribing orthotic braces for them. He faces a maximum 10-year prison term for each of the three healthcare fraud counts and a five-year sentence for each of the two false statement counts when he is sentenced Oct. 8. 

Medtronic also ranked in the top five most popular stories for earning FDA approval of its Inceptiv closed-loop, rechargeable spinal cord stimulator (SCS) to treat chronic pain. Inceptiv is claimed to be the first SCS device with a closed-loop feature that senses biological signals in the spinal cord and adjusts stimulation in real-time. This keeps therapy aligned to the motions of the patient’s daily life.

1. Integrity Ortho Raises $20.6M in Series B

2. Medtronic’s Inceptiv Closed-Loop, Rechargeable Spinal Cord Stimulator Gets FDA Approval

3. New Jersey Doctor Convicted of $5.4 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

4. Smith+Nephew Maintains Full-Year Guidance After Q1 Results

5. Stryker Continues Strong Sales Growth; Raises Full-Year Guidance