By Ian McConnell
A SPIN-OUT company from the University of the West of Scotland, which has developed what it says is “the first non-lethal method for examining fish health”, has raised £1.2 million of funding.
The investment in WellFish Diagnostics, which has worked with Scotland’s salmon farming industry in developing its approach, comes from the university, private equity firm Kelvin Capital, and taxpayer-funded economic development agency Scottish Enterprise.
The University of the West of Scotland (UWS) declared traditional fish health testing can “take days before producing results and often requires lethal sampling”. It added that WellFish had “established a method to enable fish farmers to continually monitor the health of their fish population through blood sampling”.
The firm is based in a laboratory at UWS’s Paisley campus.
WellFish chief executive Brian Quinn, a professor of ecotoxicology in UWS’s School of Health and Life Sciences, 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. Traditionally, fish farmers would have to undertake a slower sampling and testing process, often requiring fish to be euthanised prior to sampling, to monitor fish health within their farms.”
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UWS said WellFish is “working with the entire Scottish salmon sector, a large trout farm, and producers in Ireland and Norway to provide fish farmers with technology and training to take their own samples, which are then sent to WellFish for testing”.
Mr Quinn said: “We are the first-ever laboratory to offer a non-lethal method of examining fish health commercially. When fish farmers take their samples – which they are shown how to do using our kits and specialist training – they are then sent back to us in the laboratory where the data is interpreted using an algorithm-based AI (artificial intelligence) model and presented back to farmers within 24 hours via our specialist website portal."
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He added: “It means farmers can make data-informed husbandry decisions, spot the early onsets of a potential health challenge and take proactive measures to reduce the impact, such as choosing to change feeding regimes or introducing early treatment to their fish populations.
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“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. In this way, the farmers can provide their stock with the best health and welfare environments to the benefit of all parties.”
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