Following a significant advance in the development of a vaccine for African swine fever, Phibro Animal Health Corporation says its pursing patent protection. The company announced that its vaccine development process now involves the identification of immunogenic epitopes and proteins that show strong potential to form the basis for a vaccine against ASF.

Phibro’s R&D team and its collaborators made the identification through the use of a unique bioinformatics analysis tool in order to select for the highest potential epitopes and proteins capable of eliciting protective immune response.

Phibro’s approach is to create a specific epitope-based vaccine, rather than following the more conventional path of an attenuated live vaccine. If successful, this approach would not only be an effective response to ASF but would result in a vaccine that presents no risk of further spreading the disease.

“ASF’s decimation of China’s swine population represents not just a crisis for the entire swine husbandry industry but, more importantly, a food security crisis for mankind,” says Jack Bendheim, Phibro’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. “The identification of this group of peptides and proteins is a key milestone in Phibro’s pursuit of a solution for this devastating disease.  While we still have much work ahead of us, we have made important progress toward reaching that goal and we take pride in potentially being part of the solution to such an urgent problem.”

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