Clobutinol is a cough suppressant distributed by Boehringer-Ingelheim

Boehringer-Ingelheim

C.H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Ko. KG is the parent company of Boehringer Ingelheim, which was founded in 1885 by Albert Boehringer in Ingelheim am Rhein. The Boehringer Ingelheim group is one of the world's 20 leading pharmaceutical companies. Headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany, it operates globally...

, Novartis

Novartis

Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...

's Hexal (Sandoz

Sandoz

Founded in 2003, Sandoz presently is the generic drug subsidiary of Novartis, a multinational pharmaceutical company. The company develops, manufactures and markets generic drugs as well as pharmaceutical and biotechnological active ingredients....

), Stada and possibly other companies.

Side effects and withdrawal

Studies in 2004 had indicated that clobutinol has the potential to prolong the QT interval

QT interval

In cardiology, the QT interval is a measure of the time between the start of the Q wave and the end of the T wave in the heart's electrical cycle. In general, the QT interval represents electrical depolarization and repolarization of the left and right ventricles...

.
Clobutinol was in 2007 determined to cause cardiac arrhythmia in some patients.

Boehringer Ingelheim products containing clobutinol were voluntarily withdrawn from sale in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and the rest of the world, on August 31, 2007.

The approval for Germany and the EU was revoked in 2008.