Top surgeons who say they were duped into signing away rights to a world-leading innovation have uncovered emails and letters they believe support their case.
Professor John Webb, 82, once a surgeon to the Royal Family, and his Swiss colleague Professor Max Aebi, 77, developed spinal implants that helped hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide.
But they say they were unwittingly persuaded to sign papers without legal advice – handing intellectual property to a firm controlled by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, now co-owner of Chelsea Football Club. That firm and its innovations were then sold to Johnson & Johnson in 2012.
Despite the Universal Spine System (USS) achieving billions of pounds in sales, neither man was paid for developing the implants in the 1980s and 1990s.
Webb – who treated the then Prince Charles for a polo injury at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, in 1990 – said he met Wyss as often as 30 times, and says Wyss always assured him they would be paid fairly.
The two developed the implants while working for the Swiss-based AO research foundation, bankrolled by Wyss. They say they unwittingly signed over rights to Wyss’s firm Synthes.
World-leading spinal expert Prof John Webb, outside The University of Nottingham Medical School, attached to Queen’s Medical Centre in the city, where he once taught
The Mail on Sunday has seen a copy of a 2003 email from Erwin Locher, then an executive at one of AO’s partner companies. He suggested ‘surgeon inventors’ of Synthes products should receive ‘2 per cent of transfer sales’ as royalties. Based on sales data up to 2023, Webb and Aebi say their royalties from USS could total $66 billion (£48.5 million). Locher said the policy would ‘have to be approved by the AO Spine Board’ and was a ‘base for discussion’ – but nothing further happened.
Webb said: ‘Meetings of the AO Foundation were twice a year. [Wyss] always came to them. We would ask him, are you going to recompense us? He would say, don’t worry. That was maybe as many as 30 times.’
The surgeons – who believed his assurances – even spent three months each year over a decade travelling the world to promote their system, receiving only expenses and no salary.
‘We were effectively travelling salesmen,’ Webb recalls.
In December 1998, the surgeons were approached at the AO Conference in Davos, Switzerland, by company secretary Margaret Jacques with papers written in German which turned out to involve signing away IP rights.
Webb recalled being ‘in a bar, mid evening, and the paper was presented without any real context’. He was ‘told to sign to allow the continuation of the development of the USS system’.
Aebi said ‘the setting was extremely busy, with hundreds of attendees’.
He added: ‘No explanation was given as to the true nature of the documents, nor were we advised to seek legal counsel.’
Professor Webb and his Swiss colleague Max Aebi say they unwittingly handed intellectual property to a firm controlled by Swiss billionaire and Hansjorg Wyss (pictured)
In 2006, Wyss’s medical manufacturing firm Synthes paid £900m for AO’s intellectual property rights but the professors received nothing.
Webb said: ‘We felt it (USS) was a good system to help people – we hadn’t thought about the money.’
But he added: ‘If he was a good human being, Wyss should pay us the $66m.
‘You can’t believe a man who made so much out of us would not pay us a penny. He was manipulative.’
Aebi, still involved in humanitarian projects, described what happened as the ‘biggest med-tech scandal of the late 20th /early 21st centuries’.
He insisted: ‘We were abused. We were never paid for what we did’.
Both men say they would put the money into a foundation to support independent research and education.
The surgeons – and Bern University, for whom Aebi worked – have attempted to pursue their claim.
In 2012, Bern University failed in a case against J&J via the Swiss Courts, which found Aebi signed his IP rights away, while the university had no claim.
Synthes and its rights were bought by J&J in 2012 for £15.7bn – with Mr Wyss, who owned a 40pc stake, earning £6bn.
J&J continues to sell the USS via its DePuy subsidiary. The division including spinal products achieved sales of £2.1bn worldwide last year, up 0.7pc from 2023, according to J&J’s most recent annual report.
Jeremy Courtenay-Stamp, solicitor representing the surgeons, who are considering legal action against J&J in the US courts, said the company has declined to meet.
He said: ‘It is very clear to me that Wyss had promised John and Max that they would be properly compensated for the IP.
‘The manner in which they (they) were asked to sign a document transferring rights as inventor of various patents is quite extraordinary- i.e. in a bar with no suggestion he (Webb) should seek legal advice.
‘It is hugely disappointing that J&J categorically refused to meet with John and Max to hear their story- extraordinary corporate arrogance.
‘This is not just about the money – most importantly it is about John and Max being denied the credit they deserve.’
Wyss, 90, was approached for comment.
A spokesman for Johnson & Johnson said: ‘As we shared previously, we reviewed the materials submitted by the claimants and confirmed that there is no basis for their claim. We stand by that assessment.’
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