Pfizer Inc. on Friday updated controls to its drug-distribution channels to restrict the use of its products in lethal-injection executions, the latest blow to the nation's beleaguered death-penalty system.
The company's new controls tighten an already diminishing spigot of drugs states have relied on to execute inmates, and send a clear message that the pharmaceutical giant objects to is products being used in executions.
The policy, posted on Pfizer's website Friday, updates existing policies by beefing up controls on wholesalers and distributors and establishing a surveillance and monitoring system to ensure compliance. The move comes months after Pfizer's 2015 takeover of Hospira Inc., which added several drugs used in lethal injections to the company's portfolio.
In recent years, makers of drugs commonly used in executions have cut back their availability after death-penalty opponents and others highlighted the drugs' role in executions. The decreasing availability of the drugs has contributed to the yearslong decline of the use of the death penalty.
In 2015, 28 people were executed, the lowest number since 1991, according to a study by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an organization largely opposed to capital punishment, said Pfizer's move was both a symbolic and practical act against lethal injection. While drug companies have for years publicly objected to the use of their products in executions, Mr. Dunham said state correctional facilities had still been able to obtain them from distributors.
In response to restrictions put on two drugs historically used in lethal injections—thiopental and pentobarbital—states have moved to less tested drugs, like the sedative midazolam, which have rendered uneven results—for example, executions that take far longer than expected. Others, like Texas, have turned to third parties, called compounding pharmacies, to get the previously used drugs.
Partly to shield their suppliers from public protest, states have become more secretive about how and where they get the lethal chemicals. So far, legal challenges to states' secrecy policies have generally failed. But a state judge in Austin ordered Texas in December to reveal the identity of its supplier. The names are unlikely to be disclosed unless and until the ruling is upheld on appeal.
Pfizer has long had a policy blocking use of its drugs for use in lethal injections but updated the policy to extend that policy to drugs made by Hospira. Hospira itself has also for years banned the use of its drugs for lethal injections, but its products may well still be used in executions.
Family members of Dennis McGuire, who took 26 minutes to die after an Ohio protocol went awry in early 2014, later sued Hospira, the maker of one of the drugs used. Photographs published by the Associated Press last year showed that Arkansas had obtained a supply of Hospira-made potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
Other U.S. pharmaceutical companies have also tightened controls over their drug-distribution channels in recent year. But Pfizer was the last big company to do so, said Maya Foa of Reprieve, a group that has for years pressured companies to cut off supplies of drugs to correctional facilities.
"Pfizer isn't doing anything that others haven't done, but it's the latest and the last," she said.
Whether the move will have broad impact isn't clear.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of midazolam didn't constitute cruel and unusual punishment and could be used in executions.
Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham University School of Law, said Pfizer's new controls weren't a death blow to lethal injection, but would have a significant impact.
"You have this huge company saying we're not going to allow this," she said. "It's a pragmatic blow, but it's also symbolically, it's the company turning up their nose to the Supreme Court.”
Death penalty advocate Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the move will "have some effect," but wouldn't end lethal-injection. Some states that are still effectively using lethal injection are acquiring their drugs from compounding pharmacies, which are outside the Pfizer's distribution chain, said Mr. Scheidegger.
Faced with drug shortages, states in recent years have approved backup execution measures. Utah last year passed a bill that allows execution by firing squad if lethal-injection becomes impracticable. In 2014, Tennessee approved use of the electric chair as a backup measure.
—Jonathan D. Rockoff contributed to this article.
Write to Christopher M. Matthews at christopher.matthews@wsj.com and Ashby Jones at ashby.jones@wsj.com
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