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Conditional license for PEDv vaccine

Ames, Iowa-based vaccine producer Harrisvaccines has received a conditional license from the USDA for its PEDv vaccine.

Head of sales and marketing Joel Harris says the conditional license will allow Harrisvaccines to sell their vaccine directly to the veterinarians and swine producers battling PEDv.

“The next step will be notifying the state vets, who would then be in charge of approving us to ship to states that are wanting to purchase the vaccine,” Harris says. “So we’ll be better able to market—we’ll be able to sell directly to vet clinics and producers and, in general, just make it easier to distribute and purchase the vaccine.”

Harris says the vaccine has proven to be effective in combination with other management practices.

“In the field we’re seeing, as least on the prescription side, chronic herds—or herds that were still suffering around 40 to 50 percent mortality—after starting to use the vaccine, we’ve seen those mortality rates drop significantly over the following weeks to around 10 to 15 percent. So at levels that were more normal mortality levels that we would experience before a PED outbreak.

And Harris adds, “We feel comfortable in saying that the vaccine is having some effect in those previously exposed animals in boosting sow immunity”

This is the first conditional license granted by USDA for a PEDv vaccine since the initial outbreak in April of last year. Harris says the next step is to pursue a full license from the USDA.

“The difference there being that we’ll be submitting more efficacy data to the USDA and then we just hope we can start to get a handle on the real negative effects this disease has had on the industry.”

AUDIO: Joel Harris (4:42 MP3)

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