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Danish drug maker sells drug used in US executions

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December 23, 2011|By Andrew Welsh-Huggins

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The only US-licensed maker of a drug used by several states to execute inmates is selling the product to another drug manufacturer, saying pentobarbital - a sedative never intended for capital punishment - wasn’t an important product for the firm.

Denmark-based Lundbeck Inc. said a distribution system meant to keep the drug out of the hands of prisons will remain in place as Lake Forest, Ill.-based Akorn Inc. acquires the drug.

Lundbeck acquired pentobarbital, also known by its trademark name, Nembutal, when it purchased Deerfield, Ill.-based Ovation Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2009. The Ovation purchase targeted that company’s newer drugs and never involved an interest in pentobarbital, Lundbeck spokesman Mads Kronborg said yesterday.

Lundbeck said it would have sold off pentobarbital earlier but when controversy over its use in executions arose the company delayed the sale.

Lundbeck’s system sells the product directly to hospitals and treatment centers using its previous distributor, Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health, to ship the product. “We have dealt with that very, very difficult dilemma that we were put in by this . . . misuse that we are so strongly against,’’ Kronborg said. “We handled that dilemma to the best of our ability.’’

Lundbeck, like other companies whose drugs took on an unintended role in US executions, had asked states to stop using their product for capital punishment.

Several states, including Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas, switched to pentobarbital after supplies of a previous execution drug dried up. States are expected to need a new drug soon as supplies dwindle because of the restrictions, which took effect in July.

States stockpiled supplies but those supplies have an expiration date of no later than 2013.

Europe and European companies have acted to prohibit the use of drugs for executions. On Tuesday, the European Union said it would place new restrictions on the sale of lethal injection drugs to countries that have yet to abolish capital punishment.