Aqua Bounty to scale back commitment to immunostimulatory feed additive program

SemBioSys Genetics Inc., a biotechnology company developing a portfolio of therapeutic proteins for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, today announced that its joint development partner on the ImmunoSphere shrimp feed additive program, Aqua Bounty Technologies Inc., has announced that it intends to scale back marketing and registration efforts on its first generation shrimp feed additive, IMS. SemBioSys is developing a second generation shrimp feed additive product in safflower, ImmunoSphere, that has the potential to significantly reduce the manufacturing costs of the feed additive.

"With this recent decision from Aqua Bounty related to its first generation shrimp feed additive product, we intend to evaluate the impact it has for our second generation product, ImmunoSphere," said Andrew Baum, President and CEO of SemBioSys Genetics Inc.

"Our safflower-derived ImmunoSphere(TM) product offers a significant reduction to the cost of production of immunostimulatory feed additives. We intend to evaluate all of the available options prior to committing to next steps with this product which targets a large potential market that has a significant unmet need."

The global shrimp industry represents an US$18 billion market. One of the major challenges faced by commercial shrimp production is disease outbreak which cost the shrimp aquaculture industry more than US$3 billion per year.
Immunostimulatory feed additives, like ImmunoSphere(TM), are designed to provide prophylactic protection to shrimp production.