The Necessity of LAL Endotoxin Testing

A history of tragedies is what gave birth to the need for Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL) endotoxin testing in the food and medico-pharmaceutical industry today.

This is a history of unfortunate morbidities and mortalities and the role of endotoxin screening was set as a barrier to prevent these events from repeating again.

In 2010, Baxter, a world-wide leader and well-established giant in the pharmaceutical industry was discovered to harbour the presence of bacterial endotoxins in several of its products. Fortunately, the discovery of the contamination was made in an era where bacterial endotoxin screening was routinely done prior to circulating end products into the market. Thus, the necessary preventative measures were taken and a seriously disastrous event was avoided.

This incident clearly exemplifies the necessity and the absolute benefit of LAL reagents in preventing wide-scale disease outbreaks brought about by endotoxin contaminated products.