New lab for livestock jabs

A NEW vaccine laboratory dedicated to finding treatments for viruses in livestock will be built in East Bendigo.

Apiam Animal Health’s $4.2 million lab is set to be completed by 2025 and managing director Dr Chris Richards said it would give farmers preventive treatments for key illnesses.

“This is quite significant because this lab will be built to make vaccines for diseases that we currently don’t have any vaccine solutions for,” he said.

“We’re getting emerging viruses that are occurring in our animal health industries and this production facility will be able to make vaccines rapidly for those viruses.

“Our farmers have been without these vaccines for years and now that some of these viruses are having real economic effects on them and [effects] on the animals and their health and welfare, we want to bring a solution to market as quickly as we can.”

Once constructed, the facility will create 40 new jobs, almost doubling Apiam’s current lab workforce.

It will also use new La Trobe University vaccine platform technology to get inoculations to market quicker and is expected to allow for increased international exports.

As well as impacts on animal health, Dr Richards said vaccines made at the new lab could also benefit agriculture workers who have to deal with sick livestock like Western Plains Pork CEO Judy Croagh.

“For myself, our farm and the staff that work with us, it’s really important to know there’s a solution. It can be really quite stressful if you see a pig that’s not as healthy as it should be,” Ms Croagh said.

“These days it’s really important that we’re all so aware of mental health, so if we can help our staff in any way possible that’s fantastic.”

The project is being partly funded by a $700,000 State Government grant and Minister for Regional Development, Mary-Anne Thomas, said the $17.8 billion agriculture industry needed to be protected with vaccine research and development.

“While we have a very good track record here in Victoria delivering the bio-security policies and settings that our agriculture sector needs, we need to always be alert to new and incoming threats to our agriculture sector,” she said.

“Apiam, working collaboratively with La Trobe University, is bringing together the best of scientific research with commercial know-how and delivering for our farmers.”