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VakSea: Oral vaccines for the aquaculture industry

Every year, disease devastates the aquaculture industry. Just one disease, Nervous Necrosis Virus (NNV), effects over 40 species of fish and results in millions of dollars of aquaculture crop loss every year.

Currently, most farmers do not have the money to be able to vaccinate their fish because of the high costs associated with delivering the vaccines. That’s where VakSea comes in.

VakSea is a company that has developed a technology that allows vaccines to be grown inside of insect larvae which, in turn, allows them to be able to deliver vaccines to fish orally.  The technology was developed at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in 2014.

“This is a major improvement over the current standards in the industry for a couple of reasons,” says Mihir Pershad, COO of VakSea. “The biggest of those is that right now each fish has to be manually injected by a person and so 70% of the cost of injecting fish is simply the labor of doing so. It makes vaccines pretty unaffordable for most species of fish.”

Oral vaccines not only makes this process easier and less burdensome for farmers but also enable farmers who historically haven’t had the money to vaccinate their fish at current prices to be able to vaccinate with our technology. This would allow farmers to protect themselves against catastrophic loss from a viral outbreak, where they often lose 80-90% of their fish or more.

The vaccine presents a number of advantages over traditional vaccination methods, which are time-consuming and costly. It can be delivered to fish up to six months younger than any other vaccine on the market. In addition, the small dosage of the vaccine required for these young fish will make the vaccine cheaper to administer and more cost-effective to produce.

VakSea is one of five companies participating in this year’s cohort of the Iowa Agritech Accelerator.

“For these first few weeks of the accelerate we’ve mainly been meeting with mentors,” said Pershad. “Just being out here in Des Moines has been really good because the understanding of what we are trying to do has been much higher out here. I think that’s largely because people understand the importance of agriculture here.”

 

 

 

VakSea: Oral vaccines for the aquaculture industry | Clay & Milk
A central Iowa ag-tech accelerator has secured more backers and finally has a name. The Greater Des Moines Partnership first announced the accelerator last year, naming four initial investors. On Monday, the Partnership said the program will be called the "Iowa AgriTech Accelerator" and named three new investors. The new investors include Grinnell Mutual, Kent Corp. and Sukup Manufacturing, all Iowa companies. They join investors Deere & Co., Peoples Co., Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Co. and DuPont Pioneer. Each investor has agreed to put up $100,000 for the first year of the accelerator. Startups entering the program will receive $40,000 in seed funding in exchange for 6 percent equity. Tej Dhawan, an angel investor and local startup mentor, is serving as interim director until the AgriTech Accelerator names a permanent leader. Dhawan held a similar role with the GIA before Brian Hemesath was named as managing director. As interim director, Dhawan said his main job includes hiring the accelerator's executive director, establishing a business structure and initial recruiting for the first cohort. The accelerator will place few filters, such as location and product, on the applicant pool, Dhawan said. "When you’re seeking innovation, innovation can come from every corner of the world so why restrict ourselves," he said. One area the the AgriTech Accelerator won't recruit from is biotech. For its first cohort, the AgriTech Accelerator will work out of the GIA's space in Des Moines' East Village, Dhawan said. A future, permanent home is still to be decided. The accelerator's program will host startups from mid-July through mid-October, ending with an event connected to the annual World Food Prize. The GIA, which the AgriTech Accelerator is based on, also ends with presentations at an industry event. The accelerator has also started lining up a mentor pool. The Iowa Corn Growers Association, Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Pork Producers Association have agreed to provide mentors, as has Iowa State University. While the AgriTech Accelerator is loosely based off of the GIA, it will differ in its business structure, Dhawan said. The GIA runs through a for-profit model for both operations and its investment fund. The AgriTech Accelerator will have a nonprofit model for its operations and a for-profit setup for its fund. Dhawan said the nonprofit model is being used so the accelerator can better work with other nonprofit partners, such as trade associations. "These are all organizations that are nonprofits and can be amazing stakeholders without ever having to be investors in the accelerator," he said. "It becomes easier to work with trade associations in their nonprofit role when we are also a nonprofit." When it's up and running, the AgriTech Accelerator would be one of a handful of ag-focused startup development programs in Iowa. Others include the Ag Startup Engine out of Iowa State University and the Rural Ventures Alliance from Iowa MicroLoan. Matthew Patane is the managing editor and co-founder of Clay & Milk. Send him an email at mpatane@clayandmilk.com.
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