Zoetis petitions to make foot-and-mouth vaccine in U.S.

The world’s largest producer of animal medicines and vaccines, Zoetis, petitioned the USDA for permission to produce in the continental United States a vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease. The highly contagious livestock disease was eradicated in the United States in 1929 and, as a safeguard, the USDA bars the importation of livestock or meat from regions in the world where the disease exists.

Zoetis says it is developing a non-infectious and non-transmissible FMD vaccine drawn from USDA research. The USDA holds the patent to the “vaccine platform” and has licensed it to Zoetis. “It can take several years to develop a vaccine,” said a Zoetis spokeswoman on Tuesday.

The petition says the manufacture of a vaccine derived from the attenuated, leaderless strain of the FMD virus should not be subject to the statutory ban on introduction of live FMD virus on the US mainland because the modified virus is incapable of causing FMD or mutating to become infectious. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said it will accept public comment until September 14 on the petition.

The USDA said the petition by Zoetis was a separate matter from last week’s announcement of the purchase of $27.1 million worth of FMD vaccine for the newly created U.S. animal disease vaccine bank. Contracts for 47.5 million doses were awarded to two companies, Boehringer Ingelheim and Biogénesis Bagó.

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