Interview with Rika Jolie, Head of Global Swine MSD Animal Health, during the 14th European Symposium of Porcine Health Management

What does MSD Animal Health see as the key animal health issues affecting the swine industry? Where do you see opportunities for growth?

If we talk about what the actual health issues are, what is always on the forefront right now is African Swine Fever (ASF) because even though there may be reduced outbreaks of ASF, it is still around, and it is a disease that is very challenging to manage. Here in Europe, we see problems mainly in Eastern Europe, but also in Italy and Germany. When we look at Asia, it is still going on pretty rampantly; we have it in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines.... They are in the recovery phases, but it is a matter of how we handle it in our day-to-day type of swine production system without having a solution, with the only protection measure being biosecurity. So an ASF vaccine is definitely an opportunity.

When we talk about other opportunities, we already have a very broad portfolio. We have PCVs, Mycoplasma, Lawsonia intracellularis and bacterial vaccines like S. suis and H. parasuis. As antibiotic use reduces, the focus will become more and more on prevention of disease, and bacterial vaccines will play an important role in this.

We also want to be better at predicting when disease happens. And that is sort of the other aspect of the industry, where we can bring in technology to help us detect the diseases earlier and know when an animal or when a barn will be exposed and become sick.

The other opportunity, where we are already working, is tracing the animals and monitoring them from birth to finish. And here we have LeeO, a lifecycle management tool. When the piglet is born, we start tracking information with an RFID tag, collecting information on genetics, gender, and weight, and we can start that traceability path all the way to market.
And from the farmer's perspective, it helps them to recognize where problems are in the farm and to take corrective action.

Now, that is the first building block, and we can continue to build on other technologies to that, like the prediction of disease, so we see an opportunity on the long trajectory.  In the end, these are technologies that can help producers with labor, to become more efficient, because they spend a lot of time observing their animals, walking through the barn, counting pigs… If we can find those types of technologies that can help producers be more efficient and fill in the void that they see from a labor perspective, that is a huge opportunity for the swine industry.

And the producer and the industry become more productive as well.

Yes. In the end, it is all about making sure that they can remain sustainable from an economic perspective. Because right now it's a challenge as production costs are high. We need to make sure that, from an economic perspective, producers can survive.

Can you tell me about the latest data presented at ESPHM around MSD Animal Health’s intradermal vaccine? What are the benefits of this vaccine approach at different stages of a pig’s life?

Our priority focus is making the life of the producer more efficient. We have the advantage of being able to put up to four antigens at once; we have Lawsonia and M. hyo, PCV, and PRRS. With IDAL Twin, we can give up to three antigens, and then if we add on a fourth antigen, then we use a second IDAL on the opposite side. And for the producer, we give them the flexibility to pick and choose the antigens that they need to administer to their pigs by choosing from those four.

And from a welfare perspective, when you handle the animal one time at about three weeks of age, it reduces the stress on the animal. You have the benefit of working with a device that does not have a needle which improves the experience for the pig and is more sustainable for the farmer. The product also comes in smaller vials that you need to store in a refrigerator and smaller packaging, which results in less energy use and waste.

Other studies presented at ESPHM that you would like to share more about?

Most of them are about Lawsonia and Porcilis® Lawsonia ID vaccine. Lawsonia intracellularis, a bacterium that causes enteric disease, meaning that the animal is not able to utilize all the energy from the feed. This can cause symptoms like diarrhea, and the economic consequence is that the animal is not growing as expected. We need more feed to produce the same kilo of pork, and this is not sustainable. With this vaccine, you can improve the growth of the animal with less feed. It means to increase the sustainability. It is also a very nice health feature for the animal and sustainable for the farmer as well.

We still have other diseases and other parts of the portfolio that protect against or prevent those diseases, so we are always investigating and doing research about this. For example, we are working to better control respiratory diseases by learning about epidemiology of the disease and how this disease behaves in certain countries, so we can approach them in a different way or a way that is needed in these regions.

Also, we work on some microbiome studies, to understand a little bit more about the gut health of the animals at weaning. We work on swine reproduction as well. We have validated a new progesterone kit that detects the levels of progesterone which is the hormone signal to the gestation. With this kit we can determine the status of the sows or the gilts, including which point of the estrous cycle they are in.

And then you could classify and control that gilt?

Yes, you can classify it and have a more focused treatment approach to control that and avoid sending good animals to the slaughterhouse.

https://www.msd-animal-health-swine.com/

333 Staff