Funding boost for fish health spin-out firm
A new spin-out company from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) is aiming to transform health diagnostic practices in the global aquaculture sector, boosting the latter’s sustainability, after reeling in a seven-figure investment.
Wellfish Diagnostics says it has developed the first nonlethal method for assessing fish health, and will benefit from a £1.2 million investment from the University, Kelvin Capital and Scottish Enterprise.
It explains that traditional fish health testing can take days to produce results and often requires lethal sampling, but the firm has established a method to enable fish farmers to continually monitor the health of their fish population via blood sampling, in a “unique” approach it has developed in conjunction with the salmon farming industry in Scotland.
The spin-out also says it has a huge target market, and it has plans for rapid, international growth, aiming to extend into Norway in 2022, and eyeing further expansion into South America and Canada by 2023.
Wellfish notes that is working with the entire Scottish salmon sector, a large trout farm, and producers in Norway and Ireland to provide fish farmers with technology and training to take their own samples, which are then sent to Wellfish for testing, with results provided within 24 hours. The company is the second to spin out from UWS, and is based in a “state-of-theart” laboratory at its Paisley campus.
Chief executive Brian Quinn, a professor of ecotoxicology at the School of Health and Life Sciences at UWS, said: “Wellfish presents a huge opportunity for the aquaculture sector
to completely transform its practices for monitoring, responding to and predicting health challenges within the fish population.”
Professor Quinn, who is also a two-time Converge Challenge finalist and winner of the 2019 European Aquaculture Society Innovation Forum, added that the firm offers the first-ever laboratory to provide a non-lethal method of examining fish health commercially, enabling farmers to spot the early onsets of a potential health challenge,
and take action to reduce the impact, such as choosing to change feeding regimes.
“Our company also enables farmers – and the wider aquaculture sector – to access our data and spot trends emerging over time, meaning we are also contributing directly to crucial knowledge transfer about fish health-management practices within the sector and beyond,” he also said.
Wellfish’s six-strong team includes aquaculture specialists Dr Graeme Dear, former MD at Marine Harvest Scotland
and Skretting UK, as well as John Allan, former executive vice-president and chief technology officer of healthcare diagnostics company Quotient.
The Paisley-based firm is the result of an initial researchand-development project supported by the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre, the UK Seafood Innovation Fund, and Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Spinout Programme.