Image caption Jerry Jackson was the 31st prisoner put to death in the US this year 
 
 The US state of Virginia has executed a convicted murderer and rapist by lethal injection, despite objections from the drug manufacturer. 
 
 Jerry Jackson, 30, was put to death on Thursday evening for the murder of 88-year-old Ruth Phillips. 
 
 A shortage of drugs used in past US executions has forced Virginia authorities to rely on an epilepsy drug manufactured by Danish firm Lundbeck. 
 
 Lundbeck has said it opposes the "distressing misuse" of its product. 
 
 Asked if he had any last words, Jackson shook his head and said "no", reports the Associated Press news agency. 
 
 Difficulty obtaining drugs 
 
 The drugs that were used to execute Jackson at the Greensville Correction Center in Jarrat, Virginia, were obtained before Lundbeck imposed strict controls on the distribution of pentobarbital, a drug used to treat severe epilepsy. 
 
 Image caption Jackson raped and murdered Ruth Phillips during an attempted burglary 
 
 The company has strongly objected to its product's use in capital punishment, and has restricted distribution in an attempt to keep it out of prison death chambers. 
 
 "We're in the business to improve people's lives, so the use of pentobarbital to end people's lives contradicts everything that we're in business to do," Matt Flesch, a US spokesman for Lundbeck, told the BBC. 
 
 Jackson was convicted and condemned to death in 2002 on two counts of capital murder, rape and other charges relating to the death of Ms Phillips. 
 
 Prosecutors said he climbed in her bathroom window during an attempted burglary. 
 
 After she awoke and confronted him, he sexually assaulted and killed her. 
 
 His execution came amid a global effort by drug manufacturers to prevent their products from being used in US executions - whether for moral, regulatory or public relations concerns. 
 
 Amid the difficulty obtaining execution drugs, US states have had to experiment with different ways to kill prisoners without violating the US constitution's bar on "cruel and unusual punishments", analysts say. 
 
 Virginia, like many of the 34 out of 50 US states which allows capital punishment, uses a "cocktail" of three drugs to execute condemned prisoners. 
 
 If all goes according to plan, the first drug renders the prisoner unconscious, a second paralyses the prisoner (thus masking signs the first drug worked or did not work) and a third drug stops the heart. 
 
 "A lot hinges on the first drug," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organisation, told the BBC. 
 
 "It causes unconsciousness, and if that doesn't work well, the next drugs are very painful." 
 
 Epilepsy fight 
 
 For years, the states used a drug called sodium thiopental in the first stage, but in 2010 the drug's only US manufacturer, Hospira, announced it was halting production. 
 
 Image caption The execution was held at Greensville Correction Center 
 
 Some US states turned to Dream Pharma, a British firm operating in Acton, West London, for sodium thiopental, until a ban on exports was imposed in December 2010. 
 
 Amid trouble obtaining sodium thiopental, the states this year have turned to pentobarbital. 
 
 So far in 2011, US states have executed 23 prisoners using that drug, prompting strong condemnation from Lundbeck. 
 
 While the drug, sold under the brand name Nembutal, comprises less than 1% of the company's sales, Lundbeck said it declined to stop production because doctors it had surveyed said they would have trouble treating severe epilepsy without it. 
 
 But the company last month announced restrictions on the drug's distribution in an effort to keep it from being shipped to prisons in US states that practise capital punishment. 
 
 Under that programme, Lundbeck will review orders for pentobarbital and deny them to prisons in capital punishment states. 
 
 Purchasers will have to sign a form affirming the drug is for their own use and will not be used for capital punishment and that they will not re-distribute the drug without the company's approval. 
 
 "While the company has never sold the product directly to prisons and therefore can't make guarantees, we are confident that our new distribution program will play a substantial role in restricting prisons' access to Nembutal for misuse as part of lethal injection," chief executive Ulf Wiinberg said. 
 
 The company has also sent letters to 16 states that have used or have said they would use pentobarbital in lethal injection expressing their opposition and concern, Mr Flesch said. ||||| CHESAPEAKE, Va A man convicted of raping and killing an elderly Virginia woman was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, the first inmate put to death in that state this year, the attorney general's office said. 
 
 Jerry Terrell Jackson, 30, was executed at the Greensville Correctional Center, south of the state capital, Richmond. 
 
 "Tonight, the death sentence of Jerry Jackson was carried out by the Commonwealth of Virginia for the brutal rape and murder of Ruth Phillips," Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said in a statement. 
 
 Jackson, on death row since 2003, entered the Williamsburg apartment of 88-year-old Phillips on August 26, 2001. He told police he did not know Phillips was home. 
 
 But she was lying in bed at the time and confronted Jackson. She told him to take what he wanted and leave, but he held a pillow against her face until she stopped screaming, raping her at the same time. 
 
 Jackson was pronounced dead at 9:14 p.m., Corrections spokesman Larry Traylor said. 
 
 Jackson was the first inmate to be put to death in Virginia this year, and the first ever in that state to be executed with a drug mixture that included pentobarbital, a sedative. 
 
 Jackson was the 32nd person executed in the United States this year. 
 
 After killing Phillips, Jackson left the apartment through a back window with $60. He stole Phillips' car and used the money to purchase marijuana. 
 
 Phillips' body was found by her son after she did not attend church or answer her telephone. 
 
 A fingerprint on a piece of paper inside a wallet next to Phillips' bed and DNA from hair found on and around her body implicated Jackson, and a jury found him guilty of capital murder. 
 
 Jackson met with family members, his spiritual advisor and attorneys today, Traylor said, and the inmate requested a last meal but asked for details to remain private. 
 
 Jackson made no final statement, he added. 
 
 Traylor said there were no complications with the execution. Virginia, like other states, switched to using pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental in its lethal injection regime after the sole U.S. supplier of sodium thiopental recently ceased production. 
 
 The Supreme Court earlier on Thursday denied an appeal to stay the execution. 
 
 (Reporting by Matthew Ward; Editing by Jerry Norton and Cynthia Johnston)
– Virginia has become the latest state to execute an inmate using a new cocktail of drugs for the lethal injection despite the manufacturer's objections. Jerry Jackson, 30, was executed for the 2001 rape and murder of an 88-year-old widow, Reuters reports. Pentobarbital, a drug used to treat epilepsy, was used as a sedative because of a nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental. Its maker, Danish pharmaceutical firm Lundbeck, says it is horrified by the use of the drug in executions. "We're in the business to improve people's lives, so the use of pentobarbital to end people's lives contradicts everything that we're in business to do," a company spokesman tells the BBC. Virginia obtained its supply of the drug before Lundbeck restricted distribution in an effort to keep its product out of death chambers. Jackson's lawyers, who failed to persuade the governor that jurors should be allowed to hear graphic details of the childhood abuse he suffered, said they were concerned by the use of the drug, AP reports.