Brief history of a hundred-year-old drug: heparin

Pablo Ramírez
Director of Innovation at Horizon

Specifically, it was in 1916 when Jay McLean, a young medical student at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (United States), was investigating pro-coagulant preparations in animal tissue and found what would become the most widely used anticoagulant drug in the world. Heparin (from the Greek epar, meaning liver) was first isolated from dog liver cells.

Although some question whether McLean’s first extracts really contained any of what we now know as heparin, in any case that discovery paved the way for his mentor, professor William Howell, to improve the extraction process and obtain more purified preparations that were tested in animal studies in the 1920s.

Switching from dog liver to cow lungs as the raw material allowed them to scale up production, leading to the first clinical trials in the 1930s.

Since the late 1950s, the intestinal mucosa has been the definitive source of the drug, given its greater availability and better performance. An estimated 6 billion doses of heparin are administered each year , the vast majority of which is from porcine intestinal mucosa.

As it is a complex natural substance, comprised of a heterogeneous mix of different sized molecules, its chemical characterisation wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t until 1976 that a small fraction of its structure was found to be responsible for its therapeutic action. This opened the door to developing low molecular weight heparins, which are obtained from chemical or enzymatic fractionation of native heparin to obtain smaller oligosaccharides. These fractionated heparins are just as effective and easier to use, so they can be self-administered as intramuscular injections at home, in addition to hospital use.

More than a century after being discovered, this fantastic molecule is on the World Health Organisation List of Essential Medicines and is the most commonly used anticoagulant and antithrombotic medication in the world. But it still has a few aces up its sleeve, as research is ongoing into promising new applications beyond its anticoagulant properties, related to its anti-tumour, anti-inflammatory and antiviral potential.

At Horizon, we have over 30 years of experience in research, production and commercialisation of heparin. This, on top of being fully integrated into the meat industry’s supply chain (Campofrío, El Pozo and more), having industrial units with latest generation technology and an optimised production process, makes us a benchmark.

Thanks for reading us. Don’t miss upcoming #HorizonWorld posts in which we will delve deeper into the connection between pork and heparin 🐷💉🩸.