AgWired

Attending the Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium from the corporate marketing group was Dr. Petra Maas. She is the Technical Manager for Ingelvac CircoFLEX.

Her presentation was focused on a behind the scenes look at the research and development of Ingelvac CircoFLEX-MycoFLEX. She says the other speakers presented all the data, she just wanted to let attending veterinarians know more about the science behind the vaccines and why they’re working so well in the field.

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album

“Qualifying Animal Responses to Various Immunization Protocols.” That’s the title of the talk given at the Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium by Dr. Keith Bretey. He’s a professional services veterinarian for BIVI. He says that basically means comparing the negative side effects of different vaccines.

The BIVI products Ingelvac CircoFLEX and MycoFLEX were used in the study and he says they were much less impactive on the pigs compared to other products.

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album

Dr. Ernest Sanford came to the Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium from Canada. He had some of the hottest new research to present. The title of his presentation was, “Impact of PCV2 Vaccination on Subclinical PCVAD Cases in Canada, France and U.S.”

He says this topic has come up fairly recently and they’ve now got some new research data with some interesting results. For one thing, he says the research showed that “. . . obvious thing would be that you probably need to vaccinate pigs against circovirus whether or not you believe you have a circovirus problem.” Another finding that he says came as a big surprise was regarding carcass characteristics with the vaccinated pigs showing more desirable characteristics compared to the pigs that weren’t vaccinated. He says it was significant enough to pay for the vaccination.

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album

One of the speakers at the Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium was Dr. John Kolb. I met him at the company’s Animal Health Seminar last month.

His topic was “Pig Performance with Ingelvac MycoFLEX vs. Two-Dose Vaccines.” At the Flex Symposium he presented research data that compared using this new single dose product vs. some of the competition’s that required two doses. He says the research not only showed that it works well but it also works well over the long run, which had been a question for many veterinarians.

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album

The other winner of the Boehringer Ingelheim PCVAD Research Awards was Brad Leuwerke, DVM. Brad is an Iowa State University graduate. Brad (center) is pictured with Klaas Okkinga, Boehringer Ingelheim (left) and Dr. Edgar Diaz, DVM, technical manager for PCVAD at BIVI (right).

BIVI is providing Brad with a $25,000 cash grant for his research project:

* a study to determine the influence that maternal porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) antibodies have on the interference of circovirus vaccination efficacy in young pigs.

Brad says he’s going to get started on his new project as soon as possible. He was very impressed with the Flex Symposium that was held in advance of the annual Allen D. Leman Swine Conference and says that he’ll be taking home information from the presentations to use in the field. I’ll have more on those presentations coming up soon.

You can listen to my interview with Brad here: bi-flex-08-leuwerke.mp3

Or you can download the interview here: Brad Leuwerke Interview (mp3 file)

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album

There were several PCVAD Research awards presented at the Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium. A double award recipient was Tanja Opriessnig, DVM, PhD, seen here in front of the attendees.

BI is providing $25,000 cash grants to the winners of the PCVAD Research Awards for their projects. Tanja will be working on two different studies as follows:

* a study to determine the prevalence of PCV2 viremia and persistent infection in conventional piglets at birth.
* a study to evaluate the influence of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus viremia on circovirus vaccine efficacy in conventional growing pigs.

Tanja is from Austria (I just got back from there a week ago!) and is currently working as a veterinary pathologist at Iowa State University in the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. She says she feels “really good” about the awards and hopes to have her work done within the next year.

You can listen to my interview with Tanja here: bi-flex-08-opriessnig.mp3

Or you can download the interview here: Tanja Opriessnig Interview (mp3 file)

Boehringer Ingelheim Flex Symposium Photo Album