The horseshoe crab story comes up on HN now and then. Typical media game, the crabs crawled out their appointed time slot in the media publishing calendar.
Here is a full disclaimer (from the trenches of startup land): I co-founded and ran a biotech startup that tried to disintermediate that particular supply chain. We even flew to SF to speak to some of the YC chaps, and talked to a strategic buyer. Our technology R&D failed to deliver, unfortunately. And the market is fairly small. But I learned a great deal re that particular business, and a lot of more general lessons. All in all, a crazy run with so many crazy stories, I need to write them down one day.
Horseshoe crabs are truly fascinating animals in respect to their physique, lineage and behaviour. But these things one can read up on Wikipedia.
We had quite a bunch of them in our lab (and living room). They were supposed to be voracious predators to all things they can eat, but ours developed a rather expensive habit in captivity by only eating the most expensive of goods from the local fish market. They would not eat anything else.
If you follow the whole process from the point of view of the horseshoe crab it is disturbingly similar to the stories many people who claim to be alien abduction victims tell.
Recombinant 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.”
> 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.
They 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.
There'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.
Lol. 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.
Good 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.
There is an episode in Elementary that involves the Horseshoe, its extraction and conservation. It is just a regular episode, but the visual presentation of the extraction was fascinating. I hope they are real. :)
The horseshoe crab story comes up on HN now and then. Typical media game, the crabs crawled out their appointed time slot in the media publishing calendar.
Here is a full disclaimer (from the trenches of startup land): I co-founded and ran a biotech startup that tried to disintermediate that particular supply chain. We even flew to SF to speak to some of the YC chaps, and talked to a strategic buyer. Our technology R&D failed to deliver, unfortunately. And the market is fairly small. But I learned a great deal re that particular business, and a lot of more general lessons. All in all, a crazy run with so many crazy stories, I need to write them down one day.
Horseshoe crabs are truly fascinating animals in respect to their physique, lineage and behaviour. But these things one can read up on Wikipedia.
We had quite a bunch of them in our lab (and living room). They were supposed to be voracious predators to all things they can eat, but ours developed a rather expensive habit in captivity by only eating the most expensive of goods from the local fish market. They would not eat anything else.
The crab had correctly identified it's importance within the org and therefore comp structure
If you follow the whole process from the point of view of the horseshoe crab it is disturbingly similar to the stories many people who claim to be alien abduction victims tell.
Few things look more cruel and dystopic than the rooms where they harvest the blood of horseshoe crabs
yep, if there was hint of cruelty in the matrix where machines harvested humans for energy, this may not be so different.
Except for the sapience.
And the anthropocentrism.
Can't spell cruel and dystopic without Eli Lilly.
Is there any alternative to using horseshoe crab blood in the development of the pharmaceutical compounds that keep us safe?
Recombinant 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.”
> 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.
The 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 :)
They 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.
It’s in the article - Eli Lilly has largely switched to a synthetic protein.
There'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.
Lol. 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.
Good 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.
Get real. Non-destructively taking blood from creatures that are basically one step above an automaton to save lots of lives is not problematic.
Well, 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".
There is an episode in Elementary that involves the Horseshoe, its extraction and conservation. It is just a regular episode, but the visual presentation of the extraction was fascinating. I hope they are real. :)
They are indeed real.. weird. Like something out of starship troopers. I've held quite a few. Haven't given one a phlebotomy though.
Go crabs go!
Most horseshoe related posts on HN come complete with abysmal amount of ads in the articles. Wonder why…
Has anyone on HN gotten the horseshoe crab pin and can share the story?
A pin? I did and fought for the cause. Happy to share. See my other post in this thread.
I vote for stem cells extraction from babies in a same way crab blood is extracted.