Anatara Lifesciences (ASX:ANR) announces positive results from the first Australian field trial of its lead product Detach, a non-antibiotic natural product to prevent and treat diarrhoea in piglets.
The trial was conducted on a commercial pig farm in Northern Victoria, and the data obtained will be used to support Anatara’s application to register Detach for sale in Australia with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA).
The farm had a history of problems with pre-weaning diarrhoea, otherwise known as scour. Current approaches such as vaccines as well as antibiotics had failed to adequately control the problem.
There were 21 litters treated with Detach (233 piglets), while 23 litters were administered a placebo (229 piglets) in a randomised and blinded study. The trial investigated the incidence of death and scour, morbidity (or piglet clinical condition), antibiotic use as well as weight gains and found:
Anatara Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Tracey Mynott said: “The results from this trial reproduces our findings from our earlier registration trials where Detach was proven to be safe and effective in several thousand piglets on commercial pig farms. In these early trials, as in the current trial, it significantly reduced mortality, and improved piglet weight gains which provides an economic benefit to the farmer.”
Anatara will now focus on completing additional registration trials, as well as scaling up its activities for registration of Detach in Europe and the USA. Subject to successful field trials and regulatory approval, Anatara plans to launch Detach in Australia in 2016, and then launch in the EU and USA in 2017.