New Pig Vaccine Being Developed To Be Fed Via Corn

On June 9 at World Pork Expo 2022 in Des Moines, IA, Dr. Rick Sibbel, with Mazen Animal Health, announced his company is getting closer to completing development of a novel vaccine that would be produced in corn and administered through animal feed.

Dr Sibbel
"My company is doing something that has never been done," said Sibbel during the Bacon & Innovation panel discussion at WPX.

"We've talked about it for 20 years, but it's never been done," he said. "We figured out through plant biology and immunology how to put protective antigens in the germ cell of corn, grow the corn, grind the corn and feed it to the pigs."

Transformative vaccine technology

Vaccination of livestock prevents disease and decreases losses. Injectable vaccination, however, can be costly and difficult to administer, said Mazen.

The company said this is why it is now developing a product that offers transformative vaccine technology where the animals don't even know they are being vaccinated.

By administering the vaccine with feed, challenges associated with finding labor to administer injectable vaccines and other issues such as broken needles in the animal or accidental vaccination of the worker are eliminated. Oral vaccines allow for cost-effective disease prevention with improved animal welfare.

Mazen's oral vaccines are produced via recombinant protein production in corn. The technology platform leverages many years of breakthrough R&D led by John Howard, Mazen co-founder and an expert in recombinant protein production in plants.

First vaccine designed for PEDv

Sibbel noted during the panel discussion that Mazen's s lead oral vaccine in development is for the prevention of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv).

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The vaccines developed using this technology promise to be substantially more cost-effective and convenient than traditional injectable vaccines for livestock and companion animals.

"This technology can help achieve better animal health through disease prevention - rather than treatment - and improve economics, stewardship and sustainability," said Jenny Filbey, CEO of Mazen.