A drug made from human pee is saving the lives of patients suffering from myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction. When blood components clot in blood vessels and form a blood clot, blood flow becomes impaired and oxygen and nutrients cannot be delivered to peripheral tissues. This can lead to various diseases, and when the coronary arteries surrounding the surface of the heart become completely clogged with blood clots. Similarly, if a blood clot forms in a cerebral artery, it can cause a cerebral infarction.To save life, a treatment called thrombolytic therapy is performed to dissolve the blood clot and improve blood flow. One of the typical thrombolytic drugs used in this case is made from human urine.
Human urine contains various components, and in 1951, almost 60 years ago, a Danish physiologist discovered that there was a substance that dissolved blood clots. Further research continued, and the following year another scientist named the substance urokinase. Ur has the meaning of urine, and (Kinase) is a general term for phosphorylating enzymes. Urokinase is produced by kidney cells and excreted in urine, but since 100 ml of normal urine contains only a small amount of 1 to 2 micrograms, it must be extracted and used as medicine. was very difficult.
In response to this difficult problem, a Japanese company was the first in the world to successfully isolate a small amount of enzyme from human urine and create a formulation, which has been used to reopen blood vessels blocked by blood clots in cases such as acute myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, and limb vein thrombosis. It is widely used as a drug to make it pass.
At the time, making this drug required fresh human urine, and it seems to have been difficult to find a place that wasn't a flush toilet to collect it. Since the drug is made from human urine, it would be a big problem if there were any foreign substances in it, so ensuring safety has always been an issue. In the past, due to the outbreak of the SARS coronavirus, there were concerns that the product could be mixed into the urine of Chinese people, which is the raw material. Subsequently, there were reports that a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which has been linked to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was discovered in human urine in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Ireland, and other countries. It was decided that the materials collected should not be used.
Furthermore, raw material standards have been established for human urine at the manufacturing stage, making it mandatory to manage it accordingly. Bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc. must be removed during manufacturing, and it has also been decided that the name of the institution that collected the urine must be disclosed so that it can be confirmed later if something happens.
This is an example of a drug being made from something unexpected, but as a product is a product, it is only natural that sufficient manufacturing control is required.
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