the future of vaccines, page-5

what a market 2006/12/03 21:27 KST

S. Korea to finish culling nearly 600,000 poultry this week: official
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Yonhap) -- South Korea was expected to finish culling nearly 600,000 chickens and other poultry this week in the southern city of Iksan, where recent outbreaks of avian influenza caused millions of dollars in damages, quarantine officials said Sunday.

"We have mobilized every available personnel to dispose of some 590,000 chickens and other livestock in the area," an official at an emergency disease control office said.

The office was set up shortly after the first outbreak of bird flu was reported late last month in the city, located some 280 kilometers south of Seoul.

"The work is expected to be finished Monday," the official said.

The government began culling hundreds of thousands of poultry in the area after the outbreak was found to have been caused by a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus, which has killed hundreds of people throughout the world.

No human casualties from the avian virus have been reported in South Korea, which destroyed more than five million livestock and spent some 45 billion won (US$48 million) in 2003, when the first case of avian influenza was reported there, according to the country's quarantine officials.

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Avian Influenza Vaccine Market
The total market for AIV vaccines for chickens can be approximated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Currently, the USDA maintains a bank of 40 million doses of avian influenza vaccine for use in birds and is currently expanding the bank by another 30 million additional doses. In addition, the European Commission adopted new legislation in December 2005 for vaccination of poultry from farms with confirmed low pathogenic influenza (Dir/94/EC) to be implemented by 1 July 2007. Italy, France and The Netherlands are currently vaccinating. The Chinese government announced plans in 2005 to vaccinate all 14 billion of its farm birds.

Avian Coccidiosis Vaccine Market
In 2004 in the UK, coccidiostats accounted for 31% of antimicrobiobial sales (by tonne) for all food animals. In the USA in 2001, 74% of all producers used some form of coccidiostat accounting for an increased cost per tonne of food of ~$US3.00. An estimated market for coccidiostats in the US using these figures is ~$US100 million per annum.

There are a number of drivers of market need for other coccidia control measures:

Coccidiostats only control (not prevent) disease,
Current coccidiostats are declining in efficacy due to developing resistance,
The use of coccidiostats is under increasing pressure from regulatory authorities and consumers because of chemical residues,
Coccidiosis has such a dramatic impact on commercial poultry production it is unlikely that poultry industries will be forced to cease coccidiostat use unless there are effective alternatives.
An effective vaccine is available. A ‘non-vectored’ sub-unit coccidia vaccine is currently sold by Abic for the breeder market (1.4 billion birds in 2005). However, it is expensive and laborious to administer this vaccine as it requires injection. As the Imugene Vector Delivery System vaccine does not require injection, it is ideal for mass administration to many thousands of birds via their drinking water or via aerosol using minimal labour. Thus the vaccine can potentially be used in the much larger broiler market.

Pig Health Product and Vaccine Market
Pork is the world's most widely eaten meat, production in 2005 equalling 102.5 million tonnes, compared to beef and veal at 60 million tonnes. As a protein source, this nears the 116 million metric tonnes of wheat that were produced worldwide in 2004. In Australia in 1998, the industry produced 388,434 tonnes of meat, worth $235 million.

The total value of the global pig health products market is estimated to be US$4.45 billion per annum.

Products sold into the pig production markets worldwide are dominated by three major segments:

Medicinal feed additives - predominately low dose administration of antibiotics (60%),
Nutritional feed additives - mainly vitamins, mineral and enzyme supplements (20%),
Biologicals – Mainly vaccines and non-chemical products of organic origin (20%).
The USA and Europe, followed by Asia, are the key target markets for any new pig product. Although Asia has the largest population of pigs followed by the European Union and the Americas (North, Central and South), the USA and Europe are the largest markets for pig animal health products, with the USA market approaching US$1 billion per year.

The global market for biological products is projected to grow substantially over the next 5 years while at the same time medicinal feed additive markets (antibiotics) are projected to significantly reduce. This growth in the biologicals market will include new vaccines for emerging diseases such as Porcine Respiratory & Reproductive Syndrome (PRRS) and biological productivity enhancers replacing in-feed antibiotics.

The market for Imugene pig vaccine products is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.