USA - Lundbeck said today that it was urgently seeking ways to stop prisons from using Pentobarbital

Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck A/S said today that it was urgently seeking ways to stop prisons in the U.S. from using one of its epilepsy drugs being used for executions. The company's Nembutal medicine, designed to treat epileptic seizures, is increasingly being used in prison executions in the U.S. even though it wasn't meant for that purpose. "We are horrified at this fact and are looking at ways to prevent prisons from getting this drug, including tougher conditions on distribution," Lundbeck spokesman Mads Kronborg told Dow Jones Newswires. The drug, acquired when the Danish company acquired U.S.-based firm Ovation in 2009, is of no strategic importance to Lundbeck and represents less than 1% of the Danish drug maker's overall sales. "At first we considered stopping production of this product but there is a medical need for it and hospitals pleaded with us not to cut off the supply. It is the mother of all dilemmas for us," Kronborg said. Generically known as pentobarbital, the drug was designed to treat epileptic seizures, and is also sometimes used to euthanize animals.