NBC News posts, "Drug Maker Mylan Takes $70 Million Hit in Battle Over Lethal Injection," by Tracy Connor.
Alabama's plan to use a new drug to execute death-row prisoners is causing headaches for the pharmaceutical company that makes the chemical.
An anti-death penalty organization convinced a German financial firm to pull a $70 million investment in Mylan, the manufacturer of rocuronium bromide, a paralytic that is part of the state's untested three-drug lethal injection.
Jens Erhardt, managing director of asset manager DJE Kapital, told NBC News that his firm sold all its Mylan shares about a month ago because the drug giant would not guarantee its products won't wind up in executioners' syringes.
"We don't want to support this," Erhardt said. "If clients find out we have shares in companies that supply that drug, we have problems with our clients."
"Mylan faces investor pressures over use of drugs in US executions," is by Andrew Ward for Financial Times.
Mylan has become the target of anti-death penalty campaigners with a German investment fund selling its shares in the pharmaceuticals group because of concern that one of its products could be used in executions by American prisons.
Campaigners successfully lobbied DJE Kapital to dispose of its holding in the US generic drugmaker and are pressing other investors to do the same. It is the latest stage of a campaign that has previously forced Lundbeck of Denmark and Hospira of the US to announce measures to prevent their drugs being used in executions.
And:
Mylan said it was “dedicated to upholding the highest standards of quality and integrity” and only distributed products “through legally compliant channels, intended for prescription by healthcare providers consistent with approved labelling”.
Pressure from anti-death penalty campaigners has caused several pharmaceuticals companies to tighten controls on the sale of drugs with the potential to be used in executions. Teva of Israel and UK-listed Hikma are among others to have acted.
This has made it increasingly hard for US states to produce the lethal “cocktails” needed to kill prisoners on death row.
Related posts are in the international and lethal injection category indexes. I'm also starting a new pharmaceuticals category index.
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