A HAGLEY campaigner is claiming a landmark victory to halt the supply of a drug used in the execution of death-row prisoners.

Dr David Nicholl led a campaign which forced multi-national company Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals to change its distribution procedures for pentobarbital in American states that execute prisoners by lethal injection.

The drug is a powerful anaesthetic which, according to human rights charity Reprieve, has been used in the execution of 18 prisoners.

Consultant neurologist, Dr Nicholl, from Woodlands Avenue, said: “This is a massive victory, it is the first time a major pharmaceutical company has taken such direct action to ensure its drugs are used to benefit the health of patients, not assist in state sponsored execution.”

Human rights activists have been working for months to put pressure on Danish company Lundbeck amid fears the drug does not prevent unnecessary suffering.

The last convicted killer to be executed using the pentobarbital regime was Roy Blanckenship, who was put to death in Georgia on June 23 for the 1978 murder and sexual assault of 78-year-old Sarah Mims Bowen.

Gruesome eyewitness reports describe how Blanckenship, aged 55, appeared to grimace, jerked his head and mouthed inaudible words for around three minutes before being given further drugs to induce paralysis and then stop his heart.

Pentobarbital is normally used in the treatment of severe epilepsy and was only adopted for execution procedures in America after a recent ban on imports from Italy of a previous agent - sodium thiopental.

As part of their campaign, Dr Nicholl and more than 60 fellow clinicians signed an open letter to Lundbeck chief executive Ulf Wiinberg in the medical journal The Lancet.

The letter, published on June 9, demanded the company “restrict the distribution of pentobarbital to legitimate users but not executioners”.

On July 1, Lundbeck, which sells the drug under the name Nembutal, agreed to change its methods of distribution in a bid to prevent its product ending up in US prisons for executions.

Ulf Wiinberg said: “Lundbeck adamantly opposes the distressing misuse of our product in capital punishment.

“While the company has never sold the product directly to prisons and therefore can’t make guarantees, we are confident our new distribution program will play a substantial role in restricting prisons’ access as part of lethal injection.”

Dr Nicholl said: “There is a real opportunity to end the death penalty in the US if other manufacturers follow suit. If another drug company ends up supplying death row, I and more than 100 healthcare workers will be after them.”