Nevada Execution Halted On Claims State Obtained Execution Drug Through ​“Subterfuge”

In response to a lawsuit filed by pharmaceutical manufacturer Alvogen, Inc., a Clark County, Nevada District Judge has stayed the July 11, 2018, execution of Scott Dozier and issued a temporary restraining order barring Nevada from using drugs produced by Alvogen to execute Dozier.

Saying Nevada had obtained a supply of the drug-maker’s sedative midazolam “by subterfuge,” the multibillion-dollar generic drug company sued Nevada and the state Department of Corrections on July 10 to prevent the state from using its drugs in any execution. The lawsuit alleged that Nevada “intentionally defrauded Alvogen’s distributor” by concealing its intention to use Alvogen’s medicine in Dozier‘s execution and by “implicitly ma[king] the false representation that they had legitimate therapeutic rationale” for buying the drug.

In granting the restraining order, District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez wrote that the misuse of midazolam in an execution would result in “irreparable harm to [Alvogen’s] reputation as a company that produces life-enhancing and life-saving drugs” and that the damage to its business reputation could adversely affect investor and customer relations.

Alvogen has a policy not to accept direct orders from prison systems or departments of correction and “does not condone the use of any of its drug products, including midazolam, for use in state sponsored executions.” Alvogen’s lawyers said that the company also had sent a letter in April to the governors, attorneys general, and prison directors of all of the death-penalty states in the U.S. expressing “in the clearest possible terms that Alvogen strongly objects to use of its products in capital punishment.”

After Nevada’s supply of another drug expired and it decided to switch to midazolam, prison officials bought the drug from pharmaceutical distributor Cardinal Health without disclosing its intended purpose. Alvogen said Nevada officials directed Cardinal Health to ship the drug to a state office more than 200 miles from the state prison “to further the implication that the midazolam was for a legitimate medical purpose.”

Alvogen’s suit is the second time a pharmaceutical company has taken legal action to stop its drugs from being used in executions. In April 2017, McKesson Medical-Surgical sued the state of Arkansas over the use of the paralytic drug vecuronium bromide, but ultimately was unsuccessful in blocking the state from using the drug. The Clark County court has ordered a status conference in this case for September 10.