Pfizer Animal Health will buy Canadian in a bid to expand its share of the livestock health market beyond cattle, hogs and poultry, into the farmed fish sector.
New York-based Pfizer said Tuesday it has bought Microtek International of Saanichton, B.C. for an undisclosed sum, giving the buyer a stake in aquaculture vaccines, research and development and healthcare diagnostic services.
“The time is right for Pfizer Animal Health to enter the global market for aquaculture healthcare therapeutics,” Pfizer Animal Health president Juan Ramon Alaix said in a release. “The integration of (its research arm) Microtek R+D into Pfizer Animal Health also will allow us to build a more diverse and innovative portfolio in biopharmaceuticals.
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“The meat, dairy, egg and fish products that people enjoy for healthy living begin with a healthy food animal.”
And total global fish production, largely for human consumption, now exceeds that of pork, poultry, beef or dairy, the company said.
Farmed fish production alone is expected to make up 55 per cent of total fish production by 2017, Pfizer said, citing “industry sources.”
Microtek’s president and CEO, William Kay, will “continue to serve Pfizer in a consultant role,” the company said.
The deal, Kay said in Pfizer’s release, “also complements Pfizer’s portfolio of health services and diagnostics for food animal production.”
Microtek, which launched in 1983 at Saanichton (north of Victoria), serves the aquaculture sectors in Canada, the U.S., Chile, Scotland and a number of European countries. It holds proprietary and patented technologies to make “market-leading” aquatic vaccines and diagnostics and has oral and viral vaccines in development.
According to Pfizer, Microtek sports a “robust product pipeline focused on addressing unmet or underserved needs in farmed fish health.”
Microtek’s research network connects it with the University of Victoria, University of British Columbia, Institute for Marine Biosciences, Oregon State University, Mississippi State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Berne in Switzerland.
The company’s fish health diagnostic services use techniques including ELISA, immunofluorescence assays, tissue culture and genetics.
Pfizer’s expansions in the broader animal health field in recent years have included generic medicines, by buying assets of Vetnex Animal Health in India; beef cattle genetics, by buying assets of Australia’s Catapult Genetics and the U.S. firm Bovigen; and an in-ovo poultry vaccination technology from U.S.-based Embrex.
