Thalidomide was never officially available in the US. The FDA however allowed William S. Merrell, a Cincinnati drug company and Grünenthal’s licensee partner in the US, to supply doctors with Thalidomide samples. (Merrell later merged with another drug company to become Richardson-Merrell.) Merrell had chosen the trade-name “Kevadon” for their Thalidomide product.

Between 1958 and December 1961 Merrell handed out 2,528,412 Thalidomide pills to more than 1200 doctors across the country.

Source: Michael Magazanik: Silent Shock. The men behind the Thalidomide scandal and an Australian family’s long road to justice. Melbourne 2015, p. 141ff.