Health giant sues state as federal judge issues injunction

A US healthcare giant has accused the state of Arkansas of effectively lying to it over the sale of a pharmaceutical drug that the Republican governor had been poised to use in a historic killing spree of eight prisoners in 11 days.

The medical supply company McKesson has become the first private company in US legal history to sue a death penalty state for the misuse of its products in executions. Its unprecedented action has succeeded – for now – in frustrating the ambition of the Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, to stage what critics have called a “conveyor belt” of death.