Plymouth Meeting, Pa., May 8, 2006--Nonprofit ECRI (www.ecri.org), the nation's leading independent medical products testing organization, has sued the Guidant Corporation, a manufacturer of cardiac rhythm devices, in Federal District Court in Pennsylvania. ECRI asserts First Amendment rights to publish comparisons of prices paid by hospitals for medical devices. ECRI has asked the court to rule on whether ECRI is within its rights to reject Guidant's claim that ECRI's publication of prices paid by hospitals is forbidden.

ECRI believes that there is a pressing national interest in allowing the healthcare community to engage in comparative shopping based on the safety, performance, and cost of medical products. Keeping this information secret is not acceptable in other industries, and Guidant's policy comes at a time when there is a growing belief that transparency in prices can make a strong contribution toward permitting patients, physicians, and hospitals to assess the value of the products and services they purchase.

ECRI believes that if Guidant succeeds in enforcing its policy, other manufacturers will follow its lead, and that this strikes at the heart of efforts to hold down costs and ensure the safety and performance of medical products.
"No matter where you sit on the political spectrum," says ECRI President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey C. Lerner, Ph.D., "you know that the ability to compare products--whether it is cars or lifesaving technologies--is fundamental to an efficient marketplace. In our opinion, Guidant's actions would give far too much power to manufacturers."

There is no reasonable rationale for limiting the ability of a competitive market to function in healthcare. Simply put, ECRI believes that patients, along with their implanting physicians, have the right to know the cost of the pacemakers that are implanted in their chests.

ECRI obtains and publishes pricing data on single-use medical products, including disposables, implants, and consumables, from information provided voluntarily by hospitals. ECRI standardizes the vendor names and item descriptions and organizes the information in an online database. ECRI's system, PriceGuide^TM, has been in operation since 1996. The information in PriceGuide is used by member hospitals to benchmark supply costs.

ECRI's legal team, composed of litigators from the public interest law firm Public Citizen and from Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, will work vigorously to defend the public's right to know what it is being asked to pay for medical devices.

For more information, please consult ECRI's Web site (www.ecri.org) and click on "Public Interest Litigation."

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