An interesting article in The
Atlantic on the use of the horse-shoe crab for manufacturing endotoxin test
reagents.
Some extracts of interest:
“Every year, more than 400,000 crabs are bled for the miraculous
medical substance that flows through their bodies—now pharmaceutical companies
are finally committing to an alternative that doesn't harm animals.”
“Horseshoe crabs bled for the biomedical use in the United States
are returned to the ocean, but an estimated 50,000 also die in
the process every year.”
“A synthetic substitute for horseshoe-crab blood has been
available for 15 years. This is a story about how scientists quietly managed to
outdo millions of years of evolution, and why it has taken the rest of the
world so long to catch up.”
“On the regulatory side, the European Pharmacopoeia added
recombinant factor C as an accepted bacterial-toxin test in 2016, paving the
way for change in the United States. A number of pharmaceutical companies, most
notably Eli Lilly, have compared the effectiveness of recombinant factor C and
LAL”
Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle
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Pharmaceutical Microbiology