The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for medical use the first DNA-based blood-clotting drug for surgery made by Seattle-based biochemical firm ZymoGenetics Inc.

The FDA approval, which came Thursday, paves way for ZymoGenetics' partner Bayer HealthCare to start marketing the clotting solution Recothrom, which stop small blood vessels from bleeding after surgery and prevent blood loss.

The FDA website quoted the director of it Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr. Jesse L. Goodman, as saying that the approval of Recothrom will give surgeons three choices to control surgical bleeding and oozing: recombinant thrombin, thrombin derived from human plasma or thrombin derived from cattle plasma.

The drug has been proven effective in clinical trials controlling bleeding within 10 minutes.