Marine Conservation Through Synthetic Drug Development

Blue Star Strategies is proud to support the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition, which is urging U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) to standardize as “compendial” the use of a synthetic alternative to horseshoe crab blood in bacterial endotoxin testing called “recombinant Factor C (rFC)”. Synthetic alternatives to horseshoe crab blood have existed for years, and rFC is now widely used and approved as compendial by pharmacopeia outside of the U.S., including in Europe and China, with Japan likely to follow soon.

Since the 1970s, horseshoe crab blood has been used to test new vaccines and medical devices for contamination, keeping countless people safe from dangerous, even deadly, infections. As a result, horseshoe crabs and the endangered bird species that depend on them are in a crisis for their survival due to the crabs’ over-harvesting for bait and biomedical bleeding, putting their wider ecosystem at risk.

The horseshoe crab is a keystone species and is one of the oldest living species on Earth, with fossils dating back 400 million years before the arrival of dinosaurs or flowering plants. It has survived through five of Earth’s extinction events, where 75-90% of species disappeared.

The U.S. coalition’s diverse members include animal and environment rights groups led by New Jersey Audubon, together with industry leaders such as bioMerieux (a global manufacturer of rFC) and Eli Lilly, an early champion of rFC.