Commercial

The Commercial Programme aims to generate a profit from its services for reinvestment into key areas of VLA, such as the Fellowship Scheme and test development.

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 commercial 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.

Reagent Sales

VLA produces a wide range of specialist diagnostic reagents and around 100 of these are sold commercially to veterinary diagnostic laboratories worldwide.

The demand for AI reagents continued to be strong again during the year while sales of brucella reagents also increased significantly.

Two new latex agglutination kits, BoviLAT and CapriLAT, were introduced for the diagnosis of contagious bovine and caprine pleuropneumonia. These are serious diseases caused by mycoplasma, which are fortunately not present in the UK. Most of our sales have been to Middle Eastern countries where the diseases are more prevalent.

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 results are accurate.

The VLA Quality Assurance (QA) Unit, based at Sutton Bonington, has been the market leader in PT for veterinary laboratories for over 30 years. It currently offers 62 schemes commercially, which cover many animal diseases. Samples of known status are sent to a group of laboratories for them to assess their status using their own methods. Results are returned to the QA Unit, 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 there has been a major investment in a new Laboratory Information Management System in the QA Unit. Customers can now enter results into a secure website and view all their result tables on the same site. The system has provided great benefits by removing the risk of transcription errors and enabling the automation of sample and parcel label production. The full benefits will be realised as we move through 2008/09 and will pave the way for a further expansion of the service, which has been renamed VETQAS.

Scientific Services

VLA’s Scientific Services Unit is a GLP certified laboratory that provides a range of high quality commercial services to industry, including testing vaccines for contaminating bacteria and viruses, vaccine efficacy and safety testing, and disinfectant efficiency testing.

The Unit has undergone major reorganisation during the year due to the end of tuberculin production, which has given the Unit the opportunity to focus their work almost exclusively on providing commercial services. A wide-ranging market analysis is also underway to enable the Unit to continue meeting customers’ needs into the future.

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. Many veterinary surgeons and owners in other countries who send samples for confirmatory or first opinion testing also value the high quality, internationally recognised testing service.

Research

During the year VLA carried out research with many international companies to investigate areas of mutual scientific interest. This commercially funded research greatly benefits VLA as it allows the retention of a large number and breadth of expert scientists, advances the boundaries of science in important areas and in some cases leads to royalties or improved tests in the future. Commercial customers benefit from the world-class veterinary science expertise at VLA and an in-depth knowledge of the veterinary market.

Collaborations

For the last three years VLA has been a member of InterAct, which is a partnership between the Health Protection Agency, the Central Science Laboratory and the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory to jointly develop commercial opportunities.

An application has been made to the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills to expand the partnership to include the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and the Health and Safety Laboratory.

Identibac®

In November, we launched a new product range called Identibac®. This provides easy-to-use micro-arrays for the identification of target genes in bacteria. These arrays are well characterised and can be used to analyse antimicrobial resistance or virulence genes in the following bacteria: Gram negative (AMR-ve), Gram positive (AMR+ve), E.coli (Ec), Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Chlamydia (Ch) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Pa). The arrays are sold to a wide range of customers in the research and surveillance field. We are planning a large expansion in the number of arrays available to customers during the coming year.