Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Eggheads is the go-to podcast for egg industry professionals who are interested in leadership and innovation in the egg world. Host Greg Schonefeld explores the evolving world of modern egg farming, from the latest in cage-free innovations and organic certifications to navigating the economics of large-scale production. Whether you're an egg producer, supplier, or involved in poultry genetics, this show provides the insights and expert discussions you need to thrive in the industry. Crack open the science, strategies, and stories behind the egg industry’s biggest challenges and opportunities.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
As soon as we have USDA approval, later that day I think we will be taking orders from some of the biggest operations in the country.
Greg Schonefeld:
I'm Greg Schonefeld and this is Eggheads.
Since 2022, HPAI has killed more than 200 million chickens in the US alone and a new outbreak seems to spring up every few weeks. It's still not clear when or if a vaccine will ever get approved. And with most producers already employing strict biosecurity protocols on their farms, many are wondering what more they can realistically do to keep their flocks safe.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So you'll swab the chickens just like you swab them for those NULM labs, but instead of sending it away and waiting the one, three, five days, we'll deliver a trustworthy, accurate result in 44 minutes.
Greg Schonefeld:
That's Erik Tyrrell-Knott, the president and chief business officer of Alveo, a company with a handheld testing device that could revolutionize the way we deal with outbreaks. And the speed of the test may make it possible in the future to do something that's never previously been on the table, partial depopulation.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So you have the opportunity to get ahead of it, isolate it, shut it down, and potentially save 90% of the birds rather than having to go scorched earth on the whole complex.
Greg Schonefeld:
Of course, there's many things that need to happen before that can become a reality. Today, Erik's going to walk us through those different steps, how the test actually works, and what the future could look like with an Alveo device present on every poultry farm.
If I'm a farmer and I start to suspect bird flu, what happens next in today's world?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Farmers have on-farm mailers with swabs, multiple swabs. So they will use two swabs per chicken. If they have inordinate death of chickens, dead chickens on the ground, if they have egg production that's tapering off, lethargic birds, those swabs are put in a mailer and sent to the local NULM lab that's in a state. I think there are 62 NULM labs in the US. The swab is run on a PCR at the NULM lab. If they get a positive for bird flu, that second swab is then taken and sent to Ames, Iowa to the deciding head kind of NULM lab and then the decision is made for culling if they get a positive. So it's a multi-step, multi-day process.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah, so from the time of suspecting to actually getting that confirmation, how much time is that?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
One to three to five days on average, I believe. And that's a big problem for poultry producers in the US currently. You've got a wildfire of a highly pathogenic virus shooting through your facility and then you have to make a decision. The head veterinarian will say, "Okay, we're going to make a call in the absence of information that we have bird flu," and they're going to have to take between 12 and 16 different steps. They're going to shut down garbage trucks, they're going to shut down feed trucks. They're going to take their employees and isolate them. And then if they have an infection, they're expelling it to other locations on their farm and all of their downwind neighbors. And they're having to make these gut-wrenching calls, these significant, possibly life impacting and financial decisions with less information than they deserve and less information than they can be provided today.
Greg Schonefeld:
So in today's world, it's a one to three, maybe five day process. During that time, I'm making decisions with big economic impacts and maybe human and other impacts in a cloud of uncertainty basically.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah.
Greg Schonefeld:
What could that process look like to a farm that has access to your tech?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah. So the central labs are using PCR instruments. These are large $50,000, $100,000 lab instruments. They've been around since the 20th century. So I'll say that today we're leveraging 20th century technology and what Alveo delivers is 21st century technology.
Basically, what it is is an instrument about the size of your cell phone. So we've taken the technology, the amplification technology in these large central lab instruments and reduced it into the size of your hand. We have a very elegant, easy to understand workflow on a cell phone app. So you'll swab the chickens just like you swab them for those NULM labs, but instead of sending it away and waiting the one, three, five days, we'll deliver a trustworthy, accurate result in 44 minutes.
You can make an informed decision immediately that you're going to shut down those ventilation fans. You're going to keep your employees from being exposed to this dangerous virus. You're going to stop those feed trucks, those garbage trucks and isolate and contain.
Greg Schonefeld:
I understand one advantage of the faster detection could also be potentially helping avoid spread to nearby farm. Can you talk to that some?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yes, absolutely. And maybe I can provide a little bit of context about the approach today. So there are two things you can do to reduce the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza. One is vaccines and that is today not on the table in the United States.
The other is biosecurity. And there are a lot of steps that poultry farmers today are taking for biosecurity. Their employees gown in and gown out. Those feed trucks, those garbage trucks are sprayed down. There are certain chemicals that the employees step into to clean their boots. So there is a lot of surface work that is done to make sure that no high path avian influenza gets onto the farm.
The problem is that avian influenza is aerosolized, right? So it's not only a surface infection, it's actually airborne. So a lot of infections are now happening farm to farm. And because these facilities have these huge intake fans and exhaust fans, they're bringing it in from outside and then they're expelling it to their neighbors.
So I believe that we don't have vaccine on the table and we've kind of maxed out the surface biosecurity practices that are available to farmers today. And what Alveo brings to the table is you can be surveilling your flock actively and if you see a possible infection, we'll let you know in 45 minutes and you can contain it and stop expelling that virus to other locations on your complex and other farm locations.
There is the surface biosecurity that you can practice, but there's off-farm biosecurity and awareness and aerosol biosecurity that is the next frontier that we have to conquer to really bend the infection curve and really deliver better containment and protection for US poultry farmers.
Greg Schonefeld:
And I understand maybe being airborne, I think I've seen it can travel something like five miles a day or maybe five miles in two days. So I guess that's kind of where you're coming from where when you get that information and you know it immediately, the faster you depopulate, the faster you can shut down that spread.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah, I think there's a depopulation zone, Greg, that's 10 kilometers, but there's a lot of data Maurice Pitesky has generated that shows that on windy days, it can expand way beyond that. And instead of operating blind and spreading the infection for three to five days, you can know in an hour and take radical fast action.
These farmers are being traumatized by having to euthanize hundreds of thousands of birds. They have bulldozers, these mass graves. The employees are being traumatized and these employees are being risked exposure to the high path.
Greg Schonefeld:
I'm imagining just sitting there one to three days wondering if my whole flock's going to be wiped out and just I can't imagine being on pins and needles like that.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
It's horrific. On any given day, it's a stressful environment for the birds and so you'll have a number of birds that might be on the ground. But that number goes from 10 to 50 to 100 and you don't know if it's Newcastle, you don't know what's going on and so you're operating blind. And these veterinarians, I said it a little earlier, are making these gut-wrenching decisions in the absence of trustworthy information. They're having to intuit and make best guesses on significant decisions.
Greg Schonefeld:
I do want to touch on something just in a theoretical world. You've mentioned maybe the possibility that one day it could lead toward not having to depopulate your whole site. How realistic is that? And what would it take for that to be possible?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So today, I'm not claiming absolute certainty on the numbers here, but the majority of birds, layer birds, are on these very large complexes, two million birds. And on that two million bird complex, there are between eight and 13 different barns. And today, if one of those barns has high path avian influenza, all two million birds have to be culled. And that's because it is such a nefarious, dangerous, fast-spreading disease that you have to go scorched earth fast and take out everything because, as we talked about earlier, you're having to wait one to three to five days to get a result.
And a lot of veterinarians are talking about a future where you have partial depopulation, partial depop. So instead of wiping out all two million birds, with our test, you can get a result in 45 minutes. So you can take down one of those 13 barns, immediately cull it. And because you're surveilling your population with our test, you know in advance, okay, we've got a problem in barn one, cull it, and then let's surveil more actively those margin barns and keep track and see if there's an outbreak. So you have the opportunity to get ahead of it, isolate it, shut it down, and potentially save 90% of the birds rather than having to go scorched earth on the whole complex.
Greg Schonefeld:
So in the US today, if you're on a farm that has 10 layer barns and you get just one positive result from any of those barns, all 10 barns need to come offline and every chicken in the facility needs to be culled. And the regulations require that because if it takes three days to even confirm an HPAI outbreak, you can't perform the real-time surveillance necessary to make partial depopulation possible. Alveo's quick result may change that equation, but before we see it used that way, they've got to convince the regulators.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So in the United States, the USDA is cautious and rigorous about approving tests. We've been working with them for a while. We have a great reviewer. We're getting rapid responses from him and we're anticipating approval in the second half of this year. Alveo is going to be the first on-farm molecular test ever approved by the USDA. With an on-farm trustworthy molecular test, I think a partial depop is a possibility, absolutely.
Greg Schonefeld:
What are they looking for there? Is it ensuring the test is accurate or are there other things they're looking at there?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah, it's kind of like the FDA, right? There are a lot of for-profit companies that make unsubstantiated claims and the risk is always that you introduce a product that doesn't perform as promised. And when you're dealing with a highly pathogenic virus, you can't afford inaccuracies. So they want to understand what can our tests do? How is it going to be used in the field? And then they want to know what data do we have to support its efficacy, its performance. You want to know that there's a limit of detection, that it's sensitive enough that if it tells a farmer or a veterinarian that this bird does not have high path avian influenza, that's a trustworthy result.
So we work with them to design studies. They want to know that we're testing American birds, that these are viruses that are relevant and in the environment today in the United States. We have to test in three different locations because there are different flyways for migratory birds. The level of rigor that they're asking for is really impressive. And we know that our test works, it's working in 33 countries, and so we're excited to present the data and we're excited to be the first on-farm molecular test approved in the coming months.
Greg Schonefeld:
Isn't it just about, "Hey, is this accurate or not?" Or is that about making sure it's accurate in different species of bird?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Historically, you have two ways of getting infected by high path avian influenza. One is migratory birds flying over and defecating into the water or the food supply of a farm, and the second is farm to farm. So the one oftentimes triggers the other. But what you have is high path kind of peaks and valleys throughout the year and as birds fly north and then south, that's when you see the high path outbreak.
So as those birds are flying over, you want to make certain that these birds that are introducing this variant of high path avian influenza in California or Arizona is the same as flying over Massachusetts, Maryland. So they're forcing us to test these different sources of the virus and making certain that we're picking up all of it.
Greg Schonefeld:
Because HPAI is not just HPAI, there's different strands and you want to make sure it works across the different strands.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Exactly. Exactly.
Greg Schonefeld:
And those strands, I guess, could be ever evolving as well.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Absolutely.
Greg Schonefeld:
And you've got to stay on top of that.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
They're ever evolving because of the short lifespans of these chickens and the nature of viruses. It's actually mutating very fast.
The other thing, Greg, that's scary about high path avian influenza is the first one was detected in China in I think '97 and it was only poultry. But what has happened is it started to mutate and over the 29 years, now it's infected I think 43 different mammals. So we're seeing seals and sea lions wiped out, we're seeing minks. It's in 20% of the US milk supply. Thank goodness we pasteurize. But it's in swine so it's mutating and that further introduces risk and mutation. I don't mean to be a fear-monger, but it's the nature of the virus.
Greg Schonefeld:
You might be thinking, "Okay, so if this test can do in 45 minutes what a NAHLN lab does in three days, then why do we still need the NAHLN labs? But Alveo's goal isn't to put those labs out of business. Instead, they want to augment the services they provide and make the whole system work better for both farmers and veterinary authorities.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
We are a new technology and we're unfamiliar to regulators in the US market, right? So our goal is not to replace those trusted accurate NULM labs. They are best in the world sensitivity, specificity, limit of detection. They're the gold standard. So all we are doing is extending the awareness of bird flu and introducing reliable, faster guidance to farmers. So you would still swab those chickens with that mailer and you would still be delivering it to the NULM lab for their gold standard guidance and answers and diagnostics.
The cool thing about our technology is that it gives an immediate readout to the veterinarian in 45 minutes, but we also geotag and timestamp that result and send it up into the cloud. So we're talking to a number of state veterinarians about once our test is approved by the USDA, we have the ability to inform the NULM lab in that state, "Hey, we've got a positive on this farm. That sample is coming to you. Fast track its review and get that answer quickly so we can take action." So we're participating in that NULM infrastructure and allowing them to do their job better and faster and more responsive.
It's like you call the ER in advance before the ambulance shows up. So we're going to be calling in advance and saying, "Hey, you've got a problem sample coming your way. Let's be coordinated. Let's have a rapid response. Let's jump on this fast."
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. I'm kind of just thinking that, man, that would be the pinnacle to get to that point where, say, you have a two million bird site and you don't have to depopulate the whole site. That would be just an incredible place to get to. And I'm just imagining you'd have to have a tight, working in conjunction with those state vet labs to make that possible, to be able to move at that kind of speed.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah. And I want to be humble enough to understand that we're kind of new to the scene, right? Our history is with human health. This is a medical grade diagnostic instrument. And in fact, the CDC actually paid us to take this test for chickens and develop the same thing for humans. But it hasn't been deployed in the US before, so we have to earn the right to be a trusted participant in the ecosystem. And that comes from providing the USDA with data. That comes from showing that we're working effectively outside the United States. That comes from giving poultry operations trusted guidance that they see as accurate, trustworthy, and lets them respond faster.
So as we become a known entity, a trusted participant in that diagnostic surveillance ecosystem, I have great hopes for partial depopulation. I don't want to get ahead of myself and again, it's a regulated space, but I absolutely agree with you, Greg. I think that is kind of the holy grail of HPAI surveillance and rapid response.
Greg Schonefeld:
I mean, could testing birds in the area be a part of that too? The wild birds, could that be a part of this program somehow?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Absolutely. Migratory birds are the spreaders of HPAI and testing dead migratory birds or even live migratory birds is very helpful. Maurice Pitesky talks about testing swamp land or water sources off the farm and all of that is possible with our test. We have designed it so that even though it can connect to the cell towers and wifi, it can be used off grid. So you can absolutely take it out into forests and areas and test birds and identify if you've got a problem in your region.
Greg Schonefeld:
That's interesting. I'm picturing like a whole service line that someone starts a company just testing birds out in the wild, but I think that would be something that could get traction.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
The US Forestry Service does testing today. I think they test something like six, 7,000 birds. Hunters are out there finding dead birds. I think deploying a surveillance, a trustworthy connected surveillance tool has a lot of applications, possible applications. And the more you know about the environment when you're dealing with a high path virus, that's just goodness.
Greg Schonefeld:
Any egg farmer out there who's had to depopulate because of HPAI might be listening to this and feeling hope for a future where that will no longer be necessary, but they might also be wondering, "What's this going to run me?"
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
We're at or below a PCR cost when you factor in all of the transportation and delay and whatnot. So this is not the kind of thing where you have to surveil 365 days a year, right? You know there's a month when the birds are flying over you headed north and then there's a month or weeks where they're flying back south. So that's when you want to surveil the most because that's when you're at the most risk. And then there is the farm-to-farm risk of infection where you want to surveil occasionally but a lot less intensely. So when you think about the fact that if you have to depop your farm, only 40% of the cost is reimbursed by the government, you lose 60%. There is absolutely an ROI to surveilling your flock and staying ahead of possible infections.
Greg Schonefeld:
So today, when they're shipping it off to a lab, is there any cost to that to the producer today?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Some of it is paid for by the government. I want to be accurate and careful.
Greg Schonefeld:
Right.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
What we've seen, I believe, so the best of our information, our test is a flu test, an H5 test, and an H7 test, so we're three tests in one. If you do that at a lab, that's about $130 for those three tests.
Greg Schonefeld:
Versus you could own your product and it's about the same?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Probably a little less than that, yes.
Greg Schonefeld:
Okay. Interesting.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Schonefeld:
So I guess I could see one thing, maybe a question that could come up is if I'm a farmer, now what am I expected to do? When do I test? How often do I need to test?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah.
Greg Schonefeld:
How closely do I need to surveil?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So you can do symptomatic testing and you can do asymptomatic surveillance, right? So those are kind of two different approaches. We want to be careful about coming up with recommendations, but we are working with academics and practitioners to say, "That based upon the literature, these are the symptoms that would trigger a test. And if you want to surveil, based on the size of your farm, this is how frequently you should test."
The industry was thinking about something called supersurveillance, which is two tests per barn every two weeks. So that's kind of an independent standard separate and apart from Alveo for PCR testing that would be applicable to our test as well.
Greg Schonefeld:
Okay. As you mentioned before, this is already implemented overseas.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah.
Greg Schonefeld:
What are those farmers doing or have they provided feedback?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
It's very much up to the individual farmer, but we have detected bird flu in Europe and allowed the farmer to shut down their operation faster and contain it. So we've got actual kind of use cases where we're showing the benefits.
In Northern Africa, they had a vaccinated flock. They had vaccinated it for bird flu and they saw egg production drop off precipitously. So they were testing for Newcastle. They thought that was the possible problem. But they had our test. So they ran our test and sure enough that vaccinated flock had bird flu. So these vaccines are 60, 70% effective. And when you have a vaccinated flock, the birds shed less virus. But we're very proud of the fact that our limit of detection and sensitivity, even in a vaccinated flock, was able to pick up high path.
Egypt, they're rolling out our test. And 10% of poultry farmers in Egypt are going to be using our test for surveillance and diagnostics. As an American company, we're thinking the Egyptians are benefiting from it, which is great, but we're really excited to help US farmers as soon as possible.
Greg Schonefeld:
And I know you'll probably give me a humble answer here, but once you get USDA approval, do you expect things to move pretty quickly at that point or what would be step number one from there?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So yeah, you don't know me that well if you think that you're going to get a humble answer. I'm flattered by that. So no, again, so we will be an R regulated device. So we are telling the industry about the timing, likely timing of our approval and getting voice of customer. And what we're hearing is, "We want this now. As soon as it's available, we want to roll it out."
And I want to respect people's confidentiality, but these are industry leaders. These are some of the biggest layer and broiler operations in the country. So they're very frustrated about the losses they're taking and having maxed out best practices biosecurity. So they get kind of the next level of biosecurity and responsiveness that we'll be able to deliver. So as soon as we have USDA approval, later that day, I think we will be taking orders from some of the biggest operations in the country.
Greg Schonefeld:
It's true. It wasn't a very humble answer, but once the USDA signs off on it, it's not hard to imagine this being adopted quickly across the industry. Given all that's at stake here and all the tough times egg farmers have been forced to endure over the last few years, I can imagine many of them chomping at the bit for anything that can make a difference.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
So we're a for-profit company, Greg, but there is ... I mean, this is heartbreaking. The employees and the farmers, they're out there delivering the cheapest source of protein for the US population and they're doing extraordinary work and they're taking it on the chin. The USDA called this the largest animal disease outbreak in the history of the United States and it's been around since 2022. It comes and goes, right? But it's here to stay from all behavior of the virus and we're excited and honored and humbled to be able to be that next level of biosecurity solution.
Greg Schonefeld:
With the explosion of HPAI, so many egg farmers have hit that point where they've said, "What more can I do?" Alveo's device isn't a vaccine. It won't stop birds from being infected with HPAI, but it can change what happens in those first few days when producers are making big decisions without clear answers. That allows real benefits in the short term, possibly even curtailing spread to surrounding farms. And then one day, as the device makes its way through the regulatory process and becomes more integrated with the existing government lab infrastructure, partial depopulation starts to look possible. And if that becomes real, it would fundamentally change the equation, going from depopulating an entire two million bird site to maybe just one barn. But it only works if the technology proves itself and regulators in the system evolve alongside it. Now having covered the next frontier in farm biosecurity, just one pressing question remains.
I've got one last question for you, Erik.
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
Yeah.
Greg Schonefeld:
How do you prefer your eggs?
Erik Tyrrell-Knott:
I'm an eggs Benedict guy, so I like sunnyside up. I don't know about the salmonella risks, but I live on the edge when it comes to my egg consumption. So that's my answer and I'm sticking with it.
Greg Schonefeld:
That's it for this episode and I just want to take this opportunity here to thank everyone who's been keeping up with the show. We've recently seen a whole bunch of new listeners start to tune in and it's so gratifying as we pass the 50 episode mark to see our community continue to grow. So if you haven't already, please throw us a follow on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And if you wouldn't mind leaving us a five star review, that would mean a ton to us. It'll really help new people discover the show and it'll help get the word out about all the interesting and exciting things going on inside the industry. And educating people about all that is the reason we started this show in the first place. So thanks again for sticking with us and until next time I'm Greg Schonefeld and we'll talk to you soon.