Lake Forest Hospira drops death penalty drug

A Lake Forest-based company that is the sole U.S. manufacturer of an anesthetic used in lethal injections says it won't make the drug anymore because it couldn't guarantee Italian authorities that it wouldn't be used in executions.

Hospira Inc. officials said Friday that the company's plant in Italy was the only viable place where the company could produce sodium thiopental.

Hospira spokesman Dan Rosenberg said Italian authorities insisted the company prove the drug would never end up with states using it to put condemned inmates to death. Rosenberg said the company determined after discussions with Italy and Hospira wholesalers that it could not make such a guarantee.

A shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country since last spring when Ohio nearly postponed an execution when it almost ran out.

The news comes after a disruption in production led to shortages. Friday's decision overturns a statement Hospira made in early December that it would resume the drug's production and sell it again to customers by March.

Thiopental sodium used by injection, a so-called knockout drug known by the brand name of Pentothal, ended production in August 2009 for reasons Hospira did not disclose, though officials insisted the drug was still safe and effective.

In December, Rosenberg had said a new supplier of one of its ingredients was being sought.

The company does not support the drug's use in executions, Rosenberg said then, pointing out that it is used in hospitals to save lives.

Hospira had sent letters to state authorities nationwide last spring to notify them that capital punishment is not an approved use of this product and that the company doesn't support its use in that procedure, Rosenberg said.

Pentothal was first made in the 1930s by Abbott Laboratories, which later spun off Hospira to continue producing that drug and others. Hospira sold Pentothal to about 3,400 hospitals before it stopped production.

Any remaining drug that is on hospital shelves likely will expire this year, Rosenberg said.

The shortage of the drug came to light in September when some state correctional facilities needed it as part of planned executions. Arizona officials gave a California prison 24 vials of sodium thiopental for use at San Quentin Prison in a planned Sept. 30 execution of Albert Greenwood Brown. But the state called off the execution because of a court ruling connected to the Oct. 1 expiration date of the thiopental sodium on hand.