A company in Swansea, Wales, Biopharm ships live leeches to customers in the United States, Europe, and to other countries, but it considers its major role will be to develop biochemicals from leech saliva for use in medicine.

One leech-derived substance, the anti-coagulant hirudin, has been known since 1884, but the use of live leeches in Western Europe in the first half of the 19th century has only recently been re-introduced to solve some post-operative problems in microsurgery.