A pharmaceutical company that ended its contract with Arkansas in 2013 after its drugs were purchased for lethal injections is trying to determine whether the state plans to use one of its sedatives in executions.
An executive at London-based Hikma Pharmaceuticals said the company hasn't heard from the Arkansas Department of Correction after asking whether it has midazolam made by a Hikma subsidiary. Hikma opposes its drugs being used in executions.
Correction Department spokesman Cathy Fryesaid Act 1096, passed by the Arkansas Legislature earlier this year, allows the state to withhold information about its drug supplier and bars her from telling Hikma -- or anyone else -- whether it has the drug.
The Associated Press approached Hikma and two other drug manufacturers after redacted photographs obtained through an open-records request appeared to show their drugs in Arkansas' execution supply.
"We have been trying to contact the Arkansas [Department of Correction] to confirm that they have our product and, if confirmed, to ask them to return it to us," Susan Ringdal, a Hikma vice president, said in response to questions from the AP.
"We continue to strongly object to our product being used for lethal injection," she said. "We are also auditing our sales and distribution channels to try to determine how they might have gotten our product."
The state's new secrecy law allows the state to withhold information about its execution-drug suppliers. Frye said the law bars her from saying whether Hikma had contacted the department. She said the department could not respond to anyone -- even manufacturers -- asking about the drugs.
Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office backed the agency. Spokesman Judd Deere said Friday that the law prohibits the department "from the disclosure of that information."
Attorneys for death-row inmates have filed a lawsuit challenging the law, calling it unconstitutional.
Records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show redacted photographs of the containers, product inserts and expiration dates of three drugs that were purchased for executions. The records show the items were purchased by the state in one transaction on June 30 for $24,226.
According to the AP, it appears the state Department of Correction has potassium chloride that was made by Hospira Inc. Potassium chloride can stop a heart from beating.
Hospira was acquired by Pfizer Inc. on Sept. 3.
MacKay Jimeson, a spokesman for Pfizer, said Hospira has tried to restrict distribution of potassium chloride and six other drugs that could be used in lethal injections.
"However, due to the complex supply chain and the gray market in the United States, despite our efforts, Hospira cannot guarantee that a U.S. prison could not secure restricted products through other channels not under Hospira's control," he said.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson last week announced execution dates for eight inmates starting on Oct. 21. Executions have been on hold in Arkansas since 2005, largely because of drug shortages and court challenges to the state's execution procedures.
The governor declined comment Friday, saying it was "a matter for the Department of Correction."
In July 2011, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized vials of sodium thiopental from Arkansas amid legal questions about how the state obtained them. Investigators discovered the drugs were from a distributor described in court filings as a one-man British operation that shared a building with a driving school.
Information for this article was contributed by Bill Bowden of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 09/19/2015