Pharma Company Blocks Nevada Execution

For the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have cited ethical and legal reasons to block their drugs being used in lethal injections. A recent CNBC article noted the most recent case in which a twice-convicted killer wanted to be put to death, but a last-minute lawsuit from Alvogen, maker of one of the drugs in the three-drug injection, prevented it.

Alvogen claimed via court documents that Nevada prison officials illegally obtained the sedative midazolam, and the company doesn’t want its product used in a “botched” execution. “Midazolam is not approved for use in such an application,” the document said. The drug was substituted in May to replace expired prison stocks of diazemab, a similar sedative also known as Valium.

Last year, an execution fiasco in Arkansas left drug manufacturers scrambling to figure out how the state's Department of Correction got their hands on a supply of lethal injection drugs.