THE blue-blooded horseshoe crab found along the Orissa coast is set to change the face of the Indian pharmaceutical industry. These crabs, termed 'living fossils' because of their primitivity, produce a substance called lysate, which is used to establish the safety of a wide range of drugs and medical devices by detecting pyrogen, a substance which when introduced into the blood, produces fever. Deepak Bhattacharya, a Bhuvaneshwar-based scientist has successfully produced and demonstrated the testing technique at a national pharmaceutical congress held at Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, recently.

The pharmaceutical industries in the West have long relied on the lysate tests, popularly known as Lai tests, but they are yet to catch on in India because of lack of technology. The lysate tests are an alternative to traditional rabbit pyrogen tests which have long been discarded in countries like the US. The crabs are not killed even after tapping blood four or five times. The Orissa coast is only one of the five places in the world where horseshoe crabs are found and hence, they offer exciting commercial prospects.