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THE pharmaceutical firm Pharmaq has received received a provisional marketing authorisation from the Chilean authorities for a vaccine against infectious salmon anaemia (ISA).
On April 15, Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero de Chile gave the authorisation to Pharmaq’s Alpha Ject micro 1 ISA, Pharmaq’s first vaccine against ISA, which the company believes will be a significant contribution to the Chilean fish farmers’ fight against this devastating disease, which struck the industry in 2007.
Pharmaq’s CEO, Morten Nordstad, said: “The approval of this vaccine will be of great importance to the Chilean fish farming industry, as well as representing a significant milestone for Pharmaq.
“Safe and efficient vaccines against ISA will be instrumental in rebuilding a sustainable Chilean salmon industry. In this context, Pharmaq made a clear commitment and established an extensive ISA project in 2007.
“The launch of Alpha Ject micro 1 ISA is now a testament to our efforts. To date, the investment in this project has nearly been NOK 40 million [£4.4m]. This proves our targeted focus in the development of ISA vaccines to the industry,” said.
Alpha Ject micro 1 ISA is a single-component ISA vaccine. Pharmaq have also submitted an application for a multi-component ISA vaccine to the Chilean authorities.
Nordstad added: “We hope to receive an approval of the multi-component vaccine for Chile in the near future. Within Pharmaq, there is a wide basis of competence and knowledge of the ISA virus and vaccine development.
“Based on this result, our next objective will be to include the well documented ISA vaccine component into vaccines for the fish farming industry in Norway and the Faroe Islands. First of all, today we are proud to offer an ISA vaccine to our Chilean customers.”
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