Kayem's US agent moved out

MUMBAI: Despite all the noise about censuring companies not registered in the USA, the corrections departments of Nebraska and South Dakota went ahead and acquired the lethal drug for executions through injection from a company that is not listed with the US-FDA. Borivli-based Kayem specializes in herbal formulations and a sells a brand of sex-enhancement drug for men, but has never before shipped a drug to the USA.
Kayem’s director Navneet Verma told TOI, “In view of the sensitivity involved with the sale of our sodium thiopental to various jails/prisons in the USA, and as alleged to be used for the purpose of lethal injection, we voluntary declare that we as an Indian pharma dealer who cherish the ethos of Hinduism, will refrain from selling the drug where the purpose is for lethal injection or its misuse.”
“Three other firms based in Mumbai, Gujarat and Noida, which have been manufacturing the same drug, have also decided to stop supplying it for lethal injections,” he said.So, 13 other states in America which had lined up to buy the drug from Kayem will be turned down, said Verma. Lethal injections given to those serving capital punishments contain a 3-gram dose of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Unlike in India, death row convicts are executed using lethal injections, not hanged.
Verma said his agent in the US, Chris Harris, an intermediary between the US corrections departments and Kayem, had been asked to move out. Reports said Kayem’s US address was a post-box number.
Three other firms making the same drug will also stop supplying it for lethal injections.