Making heparin safe

The pig is king in China. While North Americans and Europeans prefer to eat beef or chicken, pork is the meat of choice in China. In 2014, China slaughtered more than 700 million pigs, roughly one animal for every two people in the country. Pigs are so much a part of the culture in China that the character for home (家) is made up of two symbols meaning pig and roof. China’s huge pig population is the reason why the country is a superpower when it comes to making heparin, an anticoagulant used around the globe during heart surgery and dialysis as well as for the treatment of deep vein thrombosis. The country accounts for half of the world’s heparin production. Pig intestine mucosa is currently the only approved raw material for producing the heparin sold in most of the world, including the U.S. And given that each mucosa yields