A medical breakthrough is about to happen, as chemists announced the advanced work on the development of a fully-synthetic version of the blood thinner known as heparin. Up until now, it was only made out of pig intestines at there were several concerns from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of contaminated batches.

Apparently, due to a contaminated batch, the animal-based product was linked last year to at least 80 deaths and many more allergic reactions. The new product would put some of those worries behind, offering a much safer option.

"With the problems associated with contaminated heparin produced from pig tissues in China, a non-animal source of this essential drug is gaining importance," says study co-author Robert J. Linhardt, Ph.D., a chemist with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. "A safer version of the drug could result in less adverse effects and fewer deaths."

Heparin is used by doctors worldwide to prevent potentially fatal blood clots during kidney dialysis and heart surgery. The problem with its fabrication process, which is mostly done in China (about 70 percent), is that when it comes to hygiene and regulatory control standards, the workshops handling the operations are far from the environment needed by such a delicate activity.

"If heparin is prepared the right way, it should be consistent and safe, even from an animal source," explained Linhardt.

The new procedure, called chemoenzymatic synthesis, managed so far to produce only small quantities of heparin and the research continues in order to find the way of producing it on a bigger scale, which will surely be widely adopted.