Porcine Heparin Shortages Urge Bovine Heparin Comeback: A Literature Review Comparison of Unfractionated Heparin

Pharmacology of Heparin and Related Drugs: An Update

“…Outbreaks of diseases of the pig and the fragility of the supply chain can lead to shortages of raw material for porcine heparin, which in turn led to an unfavorable impact on the availability of this important medicine. This was evident in some countries during the recent COVID-19 pandemic (McCarthy et al, 2020;Rosovsky et al, 2020;Sharma et al, 2020). Thus, the US Food and Drug Administration is encouraging the introduction of bovine heparin into the United States (Al-Hakim, 2021) to counter these supply issues with porcine heparin, but new pharmacopeial methods will be needed to safeguard the quality of bovine heparin.…”