EpiVax, Inc. and Zoetis, are pleased to announce an exclusive collaboration to develop CircoMatch, a bioinformatics tool that predicts the coverage of porcine circovirus type 2 vaccines against field isolates of PCV2. The new tool provides a quick turnaround, powerful way to provide near real-time predictive effectiveness data so swine veterinarians and producers can make informed decisions in vaccination programs.

CircoMatch applies the EpiVax EpiCC (Epitope Content Comparison) tool and EpiVax PigMatrix algorithm in a custom-built website, which performs a detailed comparison between PCV2 vaccines and circulating field strains of the PCV2 virus. These proprietary computational tools allow for a practical prediction of effectiveness for existing commercial vaccines and may aid in the development of vaccines that are more efficacious across different viral variants.

PCV2 can cause significant production issues on farms, including suffering and weight loss in growing pigs caused by subclinical infections, reproductive failure in sows, generating significant economic losses to farmers. Current vaccines help in reducing pig mortality mitigating economic losses, however, due to continuous viral evolution, existing vaccines have varying effectiveness against the many emerging new field strains of PCV2. CircoMatch results in a quick turnaround, a powerful way for Zoetis to provide veterinarians and producers with predictive effectiveness data so they can make informed decisions about their vaccination programs.   

Zoetis and EpiVax will be sharing more details on this new collaboration during the upcoming Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases meeting in Chicago, Jan. 22-24.

Source: EpiVax