While it’s generally not typical for InsideCounsel to cover topics surrounding capital punishment, more and more drug companies are finding themselves at the center of this controversial issue.
Recently, some have stopped manufacturing drugs for use in capital punishment all together for fear of legal action down the road while others are also taking steps to protect themselves from legal liability.
Today, Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck announced it will be launching a new system to deny U.S. prisons that conduct executions access to one of its drugs. Lundbeck’s Nembutal (the brand name for its pentobarbital) is made and marketed by the company for use as an epilepsy treatment. However, it can be used as the first of a three-drug cocktail in lethal injections of prisoners on death row.
After receiving criticism by groups opposed to capital punishment that it wasn’t doing enough to keep Nembutal out of prisons, Lundbeck said in a statement that going forward, it will "deny orders from prisons located in states currently active in carrying out death penalty sentences."
Read more about Lundbeck’s new system to halt the sale of its drug to U.S. prisons.
