Women researchers receive a fraction of funding from the world’s biggest medtech companies
15 Oct 2021
The gender divide in medtech extends beyond leadership and into funding for investigational studies by U.S. physicians.
Only 6.7% of physicians who received research payments from the world’s largest medical device companies in 2020 were women, according to an analysis of Medical Design & Outsourcing’s Big 100 list of medtech companies and CMS Open Payments data.
Among the 20 medical device companies that fund research by U.S. physicians are 3M, Abbott, BD, Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson (dba J&J Surgical Vision and J&J Vision Care), Medtronic (dba Medtronic, Medtronic Minimed, Medtronic USA, Medtronic Vascular), Royal Philips (dba Philips Electronics), Stryker and Zimmer Biomet.
Together, those companies paid $3.9 million to 312 doctors in 2020, but only 21 were women, receiving a collective $402,600.
Women physicians, on average, received 15.7% of payments from each of the top medtech companies, but accounted for a total of 6.7% of all research payments from the nine companies that reported on the CMS website. Here’s a closer look at the funding:
3M doled out $7,430 in research payments to one woman physician in 2020.
Abbott paid $238,380 to 41 physicians last year, two (4.9%) of which were women who received a collective $2,430 (1.02%).
BD‘s funded $85,102 worth of research payments to five physicians, none of whom were women.
Boston Scientific also funded zero women physicians in 2020 out of the $456,397 in research payments to 15 physicians.
Johnson & Johnson, through its two reporting businesses Surgical Vision and Vision Care, paid 10 physicians $96,043 in 2020. Only three (30%) were women, who received collectively $69,320 (72%).
Medtronic and its three reporting businesses (Medtronic Minimed, Medtronic USA and Medtronic Vascular) doled out a total of $1,115,332 to 107 physicians in 2020. Just 12 (11.21%) of those physicians were women who received a total of $63,923 (5.73%)
Of the 87 physicians funded by $1,450,373 from Royal Philips (dba Philips Electronics), two (2.30%) were women who collectively received $99,497 (6.86%).
Stryker‘s $189,892 to 24 physicians in 2020 included no women researchers.
Zimmer Biomet backed one woman physician out of 22 total physicians (4.55%), paying $160,000 (65.16%) of the total $245,534.
Alcon, B. Braun Melsungen, Baxter, Cardinal Health, Danaher, EssilorLuxottica, Fresenius, GE Healthcare, Henry Schein, Owens & Minor and Siemens Healthineers were excluded from this analysis because the CMS database didn’t show them giving research payments to doctors in 2020.
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