BioDiem’s antimicrobial joins the field

Melbourne biotechnology company BioDiem Limited (ASX:BDM) has reported promising results from the first field trial of its BDM-I antimicrobial as a poultry feed additive.

BDM is the second growth-and profit-boosting synthetic antimicrobials being tested for the Australian poultry industry, which operates on razor-thin margins. The other, a polymer antimicrobial developed by Perth-based Chemeq (ASX:CMQ), is now going into commercial production.

RMIT University researchers trialled the BioDiem compound, developed at Russia’s Institute of Experimental Medicine in St Petersberg, in 864 one-day old broiler chicks at an agricultural college.

The company reported that the BDM-I treated birds reduced their feed intake by 9.2 per cent, compared to a 2.9 per cent in birds treated with widely used animal-feed antibiotic zinc bacitracin. Feed conversion efficiency improved by 6.8 per cent, compared with 4 per cent for bacitracin. Both treatment groups showed a 50 per cent reduction in mortality compared with the control group (2.5 per cent compared to 5.1 per cent) which received no treatment.

BioDiem’s director of R&D, Professor Bob Borland, said the company was delighted with the result. “It significantly reduces the amount of food required to achieve commercial bodyweight,” he said.

“A few months ago we thought we would need to demonstrate an improvement of around 10 per cent in feed conversion efficiency, but it’s such a huge business and profit margins are so small, that people in the industry have told us that anything over 1 per cent is worthwhile.

Borland said that, based on the trial result, producers could expect to save at least 6 tonnes of feed for a 50,000-bird run. A run usually lasts 42 days, and producers typically aim for half a dozen runs per year, so a producer with a 100,000-bird shed would save at least 72 tonnes of feed.

Previous in vitro tests by RMIT University microbiologist had shown that the BDM-I antimicrobial is active against a broad range of pathogens, including bacteria, fungi and protozoan parasites.

In vitro tests by researchers at RMIT University and the University of New England in Armidale have shown that BDM-1 is highly effective in controlling the poultry industry’s two major microbial diseases, coccidiosis, caused by the protozoan Eimeria, and necrotic enterititis, caused by the bacterium Clostridium perfringens.

Unlike Chemeq’s product, the BioDiem antimicrobial is a small molecule. Its mode of activity is unknown, but like the Chemeq product, its generic activity appears to stem from its ability to bind proteins that stud the surface of all microbial pathogens, preventing the microbes attaching to receptors on the gut wall.

Borland says the molecule, in its original formulation, is poorly soluble in water – and in body fluids. BioDiem now has a water-soluble form that retains the stability of the original. It retains its activity after being exposed to high temperatures (180-200OC) during the feed-pelletising process.

BioDiem is seeking a commercial partner – possibly a major poultry feed producer, Borland said.

The global poultry industry is moving away from using antibiotics and steroid hormones as feed additives because of concerns about potential health consequences for consumers – the average Australian consumes 62 kilomgrams of chicken meat per year.

Antibiotics promote growth indirectly, by keeping animals healthy and growing rapidly, but their widespread use in livestock production has been implicated in the emergence of potentially lethal strains of multi-resistant human pathogenic bacteria in hospitals around the world.

The poultry industry is seeking new antimicrobials, unrelated to antibiotics used in humans, which will also minimise selection pressure for microbial resistance.