Blue-blooded crabs at heart of pharma dispute on drug testing by JPMillerSwitz
Charles River insists additional scrutiny is necessary before rFC technology wins equal standing.
Lonza points to analyses by multiple drugmakers demonstrating rFC was comparable to the crab-blood tests in ensuring drugs were contaminant-free. But Lonza is counting on rFC emerging as a new pillar of its testing business, contributing to its goal of more than 7 billion Swiss francs in group annual revenue by 2022, from 5.5 billion francs.Horseshoe crabs’ copper-rich blood has helped them survive since before the dinosaurs in brackish coastal waters by clotting around endotoxins, the potentially dangerous molecules found in cell walls of bacteria like E. coli.
In Asia, where horseshoe crabs are also eaten by humans, the tri-spine species is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as at risk of extinction. Two other species are also imperiled. Those caught by Lonza, Charles River and Associates of Cape Cod, owned by Japan’s Seikagaku Corp , are drained of about a third of their blood, then returned alive to the sea.
However, previous studies found anywhere between 4% to 30% of bled crabs may die prematurely, prompting pressure on the biomedical industry, largely out of concern for shorebird populations that rely on crab eggs.
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