Imugene crows over immune booster

Microbiologists warned nearly three decades ago that antibiotics used as livestock growth promoters were a human health hazard.

If Perth biotech Chemeq sounded the death knell for the practice with its new polymeric microbial, Sydney animal-health biotech Imugene (ASX:IMU) has surely pronounced the last rites over the US$450 million global industry in antibiotic growth promoters.

Imugene announced today that its immune-system booster for poultry, based on its patented Adenoviral Vector Delivery System (ADVS), boosted the weight of 250 chickens by average of 7 per cent – or 130 grams - in recent CSIRO trials.

In a mass-production industry that operates on profit margins of a few cents per bird, producers will be licking their lips, if not their fingers, in anticipation of such a productivity gain.

Imugene managing director Dr Warwick Lamb said today that the trial confirms that boosting chickens’ immunity results in improved weight gain – “The results from this trial are the best we have seen to date,” he said.

Imugene’s growth promoter –- not a microbe-specific vaccine, but a generalised immunity-enhancer -- induces the bird’s immune system to increase production of gamma interferon, a cytokine which protects against infection.

Imugene says its ADVS immunity-booster does something that neither antibiotics nor antimicrobials can do.

In addition to boosting immunity to bacterial infections, it protects the birds against debilitating viral infections of both the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts.

Chemeq’s broad-spectrum antimicrobial protects only against gastrointestinal infections.

Lamb said this dual action gives the product the potential to significantly improve on the current US$450 million market for antibiotic growth promoters, which are routinely added to poultry feed to avoid production losses.

He said disease seriously reduced poultry producers’ profitability by reducing feed intake, increasing the need for drugs and feed medication, and increasingly husbandry labour costs.

In the past decade, scientific evidence has grown that growth-promoting antibiotics select for resistant strains of animal bacteria, that subsequently transfer resistance genes to human pathogens through the food chain, hat can cause intractable, even lethal human infections.

Lamb says consumers and regulators are now demanding chickens free of antibiotic and chemical residues – Imugene’s product meets both specifications.

Imugene has licensed the product to international livestock health company and Merck-Aventis subsidiary Merial, but retains sales rights in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.