ch 7 news report, page-2

imu set to make $1 billion a year from the product Making chickens large and healthy without antibiotics





Australian companies are hoping to capture a share of an emerging multi-billion dollar worldwide industry by pioneering products that make chickens large and healthy without having to pump them full of antibiotics.


Antibiotics are usually given to chickens in low doses to promote growth and to prevent them from catching diseases, which can cause massive losses of production for farmers.

However, the low doses don't kill all the bacteria, allowing the most resistant bacteria to grow and potentially develop into superbugs, which could infect humans.



Imugene's managing director Dr Warwick Lamb said there were about 46 billion chickens produced each year around the world.

"Practically all chickens in commercial production sheds around the world are fed antibiotics," Dr Lamb said.

"When (the antibiotics) are progressively removed... the producers are going to lose three or four per cent of their production, so they are looking at ways of replacing that."

Imugene is developing a productivity enhancer that can be added to water to make chickens grow bigger, and the product has already undergone eight clinical trials.
The trials showed the product resulted in an average weight increase of 10 per cent or 130 grams per chicken.

Dr Lamb said the timing of when the product goes to market was largely under the control of global animal health company Merial Ltd, which has taken an option over Imugene's product as part of an agreement.

"Our predictions are for mid to late 2006 to 2007," Dr Lamb said.

He said he hoped to make about $1 billion a year from the product "at the top end" of his estimates.