Commercial Programme
Andrew Soldan Commercial Programme Manager
The Commercial Programme aims to provide an efficient, profitable and high quality service to the private sectors of the animal health industry.
As a Government Agency, VLA is required to seek a return on public investment by commercialising appropriate research findings. Several of VLA’s internal services are of interest to our customers and the Programme makes these available.
The Programme also promotes commercial opportunities and any profit generated is used to develop new diagnostic tests, fund fellowships in areas of key scientific importance and invest in further expansion of the Commercial Programme.
Diagnostic reagent production at VLA Weybridge
Reagent Sales
VLA offers a wide range of specialist
veterinary diagnostic reagents for the
testing of bacterial, viral, parasitic and TSE
infections. Over 800 reagents are
produced ‘in-house’, of which
approximately 100 are sold commercially
to the animal health industry and
veterinary diagnostic laboratories
worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the demand
for avian influenza testing reagents has
been high this year and consequently they
feature in the best sellers list for 2006/07.
The facilities and skills to produce these
reagents for our own use have to be
maintained and commercial sales
contribute towards the production costs.
Reagent Sales 2004/5-2006/7
Quality Assurance Unit at VLA Sutton Bonington
Proficiency Testing
Proficiency Testing (PT) demonstrates that laboratory testing is performed to a high standard and provides laboratories and their customers with the confidence that their testing is accurate. The VLA Quality Assurance Unit (QAU) based at Sutton Bonington, has been the market leader in PT for veterinary laboratories for over 30 years and currently run 118 PT schemes of which 52 are offered commercially. The schemes cover many animal diseases and samples of known status are sent to a group of laboratories that use their own methods to assess that status. Results are returned to the QAU, tabulated, anonymised and sent back to the laboratories. This enables participants to check that their tests are working correctly and to compare their results with other laboratories. This year, 130 laboratories have used this service and there has been a 30% increase in commercial turnover.
Preparation of samples for PCR testing
Scientific Services
The Scientific Services Unit is a Good Laboratory Practice laboratory that provides a range of high quality commercial services to industry, including vaccine testing for contaminating bacteria and viruses, efficacy testing and safety requirements. A pre-registration and post marketing service for vaccines is also available and the unit has close links with the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. The unit also offers a testing service for the efficiency of disinfectants. This year 62 contracts with several pharmaceutical companies have been carried out to a value of £1.7m. Specialist expertise from the Agency is also available to back up the commercial services.
Diagnostic Testing
VLA conducts approximately 2.5 million laboratory tests each year for disease surveillance and control. This testing resource is available to companies in the UK and abroad and over 22,000 commercial tests have been carried out this year. Many veterinary surgeons and owners in other countries that send samples for confirmatory or first opinion testing also value the high quality, internationally recognised testing service.
Intellectual Property Exploitation
In 2006/07, VLA signed two major licensing deals, one with Applied Biosystems to market and sell our range of avian influenza polymerase chain reaction (PCR) viral detection tests and, the other, with Qiagen to market and sell PCR tests for bovine viral diarrhoea, contagious equine metritis and rabies. These deals will provide vital tests in an ‘easy-to-use’ format to laboratories, which will help improve the diagnostic capability of many laboratories throughout the world.
Collaborations
The VLA is a member of the InterAct Partnership, a collaboration between VLA, the Health Protection Agency, the Central Science Laboratory and the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory to jointly develop commercial opportunities. InterAct has been a very fruitful partnership with many jointly run projects which includes:
- improvement in sample preparation techniques
- workshops to bring scientists together to discuss commercial opportunities
Marketing
The unit continued to promote the Agency with a wide range of marketing literature including informing private veterinary surgeons in the UK of a revised test for the Pet Travel Scheme, a new reagent and proficiency testing catalogue and diagnostic testing price list.