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.”
Def quite nice
Some of the manufacturers of endotoxin testing kits charge less for rFC as well :)
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.
But there are other options.