Every vaccine, injectable drug and medical device implanted in the human body must first be tested for potentially deadly endotoxin contamination. The standard test relies on a component of the blood of the horseshoe crab.
However, the three principal horseshoe crab populations (two in Asia, one in the US) are declining, in part because they are harvested for this purpose. If these populations cannot be sustained, both human health and pharmaceutical companies’ profitability are at risk, as are other species that depend on these crabs for their survival.
Thankfully, there is a synthetic alternative that should ultimately render the horseshoe crab-based test obsolete, but industry adoption has been slow. We have therefore been engaging with companies in the pharmaceutical sector for several years to address the substantial and clear risk to their businesses due to their dependency on this one sea creature. We provide a summary of our engagement on this issue in our 2023 and 2024 Sustainability Reports; this article is intended to provide a fuller account of our work and our progress.
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