Heparin, the Sodium salt commonly used for Heparin in medicine, is also habitually called Heparin Sodium;

Heparin is a kind of acid mucopolysaccharides, average molecular weight of 15 kd (coarse product at present in China the average molecular weight heparin for 18 to 20 kd), is mainly produced by mast cells and basophils, lung, heart, liver and muscle groups such as rich in content, little content in plasma heparin anticoagulation is very strong, it is widely used as anticoagulant blood suppository.

Sources of sodium heparin

It was first extracted from dog livers in 1916 by Jay McLean, hence the name heparin.

In 1930, Charles et al. found that heparin could be extracted from bovine lung with high yield, thus expanding the source of heparin species.

1939 Liquaemin, a heparin product derived from bovine lung by RocheOrganon, was approved in the United States

In 1950, USP14 recorded heparin in pharmacopoeia for the first time.

Since the 1950s, porcine intestinal mucosa heparin has gradually replaced bovine lung as the main source of heparin because of its advantages of simple extraction and higher yield.

Following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Europe in the late 1980s, most countries banned the use of bovine heparin. All heparin products approved for use in the United States and Europe are derived from porcine small intestinal mucosa (currently, 80% of porcine small intestinal mucosa is sourced from China).