Egypt’s ‘Scorpion King’ turns venom into money

CAIRO: Surrounded by thousands of live scorpions in a laboratory deep in Egypt’s Western Desert, Ahmed Abu Al-Seoud carefully handles one of the curved-tailed arachnids before extracting a drop of its venom.
A mechanical engineer who worked in the oil sector for almost two decades, Abu Al-Seoud decided in 2018 to strike a different path — producing scorpion venom for pharmaceutical research purposes.
“I was surfing the Internet and saw scorpion venom was one of the most expensive on the market,” said the 44-year-old, clad in a white lab coat.