Anatara's Detach reduces piglet mortality in farm trial

Anatara Lifesciences (ASX:ANR) revealed its Detach treatment candidate was able to reduce piglet mortality by nearly 50% during its first Australian field trial of the product.

Detach is a non-antibiotic natural product to prevent and treat diarrhoea in piglets. During a field trial in 44 litters of piglets, the product reduced mortality by 47.8%.

The trial was conducted at a farm in northern Victoria with a history of problems with pre-weening diarrhoea. Vaccines and antibiotics had been unable to control the issue.

A total of 233 piglets were treated with Detach, while 229 were treated with a placebo. Only 19 piglets in the treatment group died and 28 were afflicted by severe morbidity, compared to 36 and 38 respectively for the placebo group.

Detach also increased the average weight of each piglet at weaning by 210 g, or 5.2%, compared to the control group.

“The results from this trial reproduces our findings from our earlier registration trials where Detach was proven to be safe and effective in several thousand piglets on commercial pig farms,” Anatara Chief Scientific Officer Dr Tracey Myott said.

The company now plans to focus on completing additional registration trials while scaling up its activities for registration of Detach in the EU and the US. Anatara aims to launch Detach in Australia next year and in the EU and US during 2017.

Anatara is working with the government-supported Cooperative Research Centre for High Integrity Australian Pork on research involving using the treatment to benefit Australian pork producers.

Anatara Lifesciences (ASX:ANR) shares were trading 6.06% higher at $0.35 as of around 1 pm on Wednesday.