This is a subscriber-only article
The company based on the NUI Galway campus will receive the grant for the development of non-antibiotic therapy for the treatment of bovine mastitis called PanaMast.
Westway Health CEO Dr Ruairi Friel said: “The lack of effectiveness of antibiotics and the growing rise of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, such as MRSA, is a serious issue.”
The World Health Organisation has described this as an “increasingly serious threat to global public health”.
Westway Health is drawing from nearly 10 years of research from the NUIG laboratory of Professor Vincent O’Flaherty to find ways of killing microorganisms without using antibiotics.
Dr Friel explained: “These technologies have a range of applications in human health, animal health and for environmental sterilisation, in eliminating and eradicating microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast and fungi. The lead product in the pipeline is for the treatment of bovine mastitis.”
Listen to Dr Friel in our podcast below.
Prof O’Flaherty is Westway Health’s chief scientific officer. He said: “Current mastitis treatments involve antibiotics; these are unsatisfactory – they are not always effective, bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics and to avoid antibiotics entering the human food chain, the milk must be discarded during treatment and cannot be sold or consumed for a number of days afterwards. Our technology avoids these problems, allowing for a potentially effective zero withdrawal treatment – that is, allowing farmers to treat mastitis and sell their milk throughout treatment – becoming the world’s first such product.”
Westway Health and the other 140 recipients of Horizon 2020 grants across the EU also benefit from up to three days of business coaching. They may be considered for further financial support from the European Commission valued at €2.5m.
Read more
SHARING OPTIONS: