4 ms·
Can't spell cruel and dystopic without Eli Lilly.
by b40d-48b2-979e 2mo ago
Can't spell cruel and dystopic without Eli Lilly.
- andsoitis 2mo agoIs there any alternative to using horseshoe crab blood in the development of the pharmaceutical compounds that keep us safe?
- beagle3 2mo agoThey are a (relatively) recent part of the production pipeline. Before introducing horseshoe crab blood, they used to inject rabbits and wait a couple of weeks. Now the wait has been reduced to minutes - which reduces storage costs and increases certainty. But there are other options.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- vlovich123 2mo agoIt’s in the article - Eli Lilly has largely switched to a synthetic protein.
- borski 2mo agoRecombinant factor C (rFC) has been available since 2003. TFA alludes to it: “They have created a lab-made alternative to test medicines, so no crabs are needed. “It is the exact same protein, it is just made through biotechnology,” Bolden said. Bolden said scientists at Eli Lilly tested thousands of samples on hundreds of different products and determined the alternative performs the same or better than purified horseshoe crab blood does. Starting in 2016, Eli Lilly started to switch its testing to the lab-made version. Now 80 percent of it is done using the alternative. The company plans to entirely eliminate the use of crab blood.”
- wuschel 2mo ago> Now 80 percent of it is done using the alternative. Did not follow the industry since 2018, but it is quite a feat switching the supply chains to the recombinant version. Good to hear that they managed to do it. I wonder how other Pharma and Medtech players are doing in that regard.
- happyPersonR 2mo agoThe other thing about rFC is that you can use it on things that have issues being tested in LAL :) Def quite nice Some of the manufacturers of endotoxin testing kits charge less for rFC as well :)
- ggm 2mo agoThere's economics wrapped up in finding a reproducible synthetic replacement against harvesting. If climate change causes a drop in horseshoe crab availability we might see the pressure here.
- sandworm101 2mo agoLol. They have survived many mass extinctions. The horseshoe crabs will be aeound long after we are all dead. Once we stop actively killing them, they will recover.
- ggm 2mo agoGood point. I guess they've weathered acidic oceans, eutrophication, you-name-it. However there is some reason to believe things like ocean acidification is happening significantly faster than in times past. Hard to be certain but that's what I read.
- dyauspitr 2mo agoGet real. Non-destructively taking blood from creatures that are basically one step above an automaton to save lots of lives is not problematic.
- rob74 2mo agoWell, only 83% non-destructive. According to the video (but omitted from the transcript for some reason) "one in every six crabs dies in the process".