Porton Group Slams 3M’s Statement on MRSA Device as ‘Nonsense’

LONDON, June 14, 2011 -

Porton Group has been closely monitoring, with much interest,
the public reaction that followed the significant amount of press
regarding 3M’s UK High Court breach of contract case.

Harvey Boulter, CEO of Porton Group said, “3M’s feeble initial
public defence of ‘buyer’s remorse’ utterly conflicts with their
own marketing material which even today remains on their website.
Their own material emphatically states that Baclite achieves 94.6%
sensitivity and 96.9%
specificity.” [tinyurl.com/2aw8e4q]

Mr. Boulter continued, “Last month, 3M resorted to suggesting
that Porton and the British Ministry of Defence is attempting some
kind of financial shakedown of 3M. This position was repeated
yesterday by Mr. Brewer of Bickel & Brewer, the third firm to
act as Counsel for 3M in this matter.”

Mr. Boulter stated, “This is absolute nonsense. Our legal claim
rests on an easily provable breach of contract -– broken
promises.  All Porton and the MoD has asked is that 3M keep
its word and pay both Porton and the British MoD what it is due
under the signed contract.  We are confident that when the
court trial finishes this summer, there will be a verdict that 3M
breached its contractual commitments.”

Lanny J. Davis, US lawyer for Porton said, “We appreciate that
3M has emerged from its “no comment” stance of Sunday and attempted
to explain its decision to walk away from its contractual
commitments with the MoD which invented this life-saving MRSA
detection device. 3M botched the U.S. clinical trials, in which
they achieved only 50% reliability results, whilst at the same time
advertising the EU regulatory approved results of 95%
reliability.”

Mr. Davis challenged George Buckley in May 2011, asking, “Why
Mr. Buckley, when your own 11 Member technical committee identified
and detailed clearly 3M failings in the US FDA trials, all of which
were easily correctable, did you not try again?”

Mr. Davis repeats that question today.

Mr. Boulter said, “In my view, if 3M were undertaking their
commitments in good faith, they had no reason not to fix
correctable mistakes.” He continued: “As a result of decisions
taken by Mr. Buckley and his senior team, global efforts to reduce
incidents of MRSA have been set back. Prevention through rapid
detection of MRSA carriers has been shown to be fundamental in
reducing the infection rates -– Baclite was cost effective, rapid
and by EU standards worked.”

Porton Group, and recently MP for West Bromwich East and former
Defence Minister Tom Watson, have asked for full transparency in
the High Court.  Mr. Davis said, “British voters have not only
been deprived of a weapon to fight MRSA infections but the UK
taxpayer lost out as well.”

For Media Enquiries Contact Josh Block at +1-202-756-8293 (US)
or Catherine Nicholls at +44-7789-644-979 (UK) or Charles Cook at
+44-7710-910-563 (UK)

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