Taking a deeper look at heparin: Conversation with Carlos Raúl Alaez

Carlos Raúl Alaez Verson is one of Bioiberica's leading heparin experts. In this conversation, we deepen our knowledge of this molecule that saves more than 100 million lives every year.

There are many types of heparin on the market

At Bioiberica, we are experts in the formulation of unfractionated heparin. This is a type of heparin known as 'long chain' heparin. Its main activity is anticoagulation, which is exclusively due to a chain of five sugars. Without these, heparin loses its antithrombotic value. 

How does it work in the body?

Heparin's job is to maintain an optimal balance between the liquid and solid phases of the blood. We are familiar with blood in its liquid phase, but it is true that when we have a wound, a series of mechanisms are immediately triggered that cause it to solidify and form a clot to stop the blood from flowing out. If this were not the case, any cut would cause us to bleed to death.

This balance between the two phases is natural and involves enzymes that help to form the clot and enzymes that help to break it down. When you are injected with heparin, it shifts the balance towards the liquid state of the blood, inhibiting the enzymes involved in clot formation. Heparin keeps blood in a perfect liquid state. 

From Bioiberica to the hospital setting

At Bioiberica, we produce many types of heparin, and one of the most widely used in hospitals is unfractionated heparin (UFH), which requires medical supervision and monitoring due to its high molecular weight of around 15,000 daltons. 

Why is this?

It is a pharmacological issue. Unfractionated heparin has one very important property: it is polydisperse. This means that, unlike synthetic drugs where all the molecules are exactly the same, in the case of heparin, the size of the chain in the same sample can vary. So when heparin is administered – depending on the patient and the size of the chain – the rate at which it is absorbed and cleared from the body can be different. This is why monitoring is needed to adjust the dose to take these factors into account.

However, heparin is also available so that the patient can administer their own dose. In fact, it was in the 1980s that no molecular weight (also known as low molecular weight) heparin came onto the market, derived from unfractionated heparin through a chemical-enzymatic depolymerisation process. In simple terms, this type of heparin selects and extracts fragments of the same size from the long chain mentioned above. As it is a fraction, it is subjected to a more thorough treatment in the laboratory to ensure the weight of each dose. Thanks to its low weight, its behaviour in the body is more homogeneous and the patient can administer heparin autonomously without the need for medical supervision. Heparin has anti-metastatic activity and can also interfere with the mechanisms of tumour spread

This facilitates treatment...

The success of low molecular weight heparin over unfractionated heparin is that it can be administered at home, without the need for medical supervision or hospital monitoring.

Beyond the treatment of thrombosis, there are some studies linking heparin to the management of other diseases

As a highly charged molecule, heparin has the ability to interact with many proteins, including proteins that play a key role in the development of diseases such as COPD and cancer. 

Several studies have linked cancer to thrombotic activity. People with tumours are prone to clot formation, and studies of cancer patients treated with heparin have shown – at a clinical level – that in some cases there can be improvement and even remission. 

Our passion for life and well-being drives our commitment to continuous innovation and research. Thanks to professionals like Carlos Raúl Alaez Verson, our Quality and R&D teams study and innovate to achieve new advances, backed by science, for the benefit of everyone's health.