Innovative bee health additive launched

AN IRISH bio-tech company which is 50 per cent owned by NUI Maynooth is to enter the US market with the launch of an innovative food additive product which tackles disease and premature death in the world’s bee population – a major issue affecting food production in the US.

Beemune was formed as a spin-out company from NUI Maynooth, where a research team led by Dr Kevin Kavanagh, an expert in insect biology and immunology, has been developing the product for more than two years. Enterprise Ireland and the HSE contributed funding to the research.

It is hoped that the product, in the final stages of trials, will be launched on the international market within six months. The company is in talks with a US firm about marketing it, while the US Department of Agriculture is sponsoring field trials of the product.

Beemune intends to build a Research and Development centre in Ireland over the next three years, which will potentially create up to 30 manufacturing jobs.

Disease and death in bees is the second biggest threat to crops after climate change according to the US Department of Agriculture, Dr Kavanagh said yesterday. Commercially managed honeybees – vital to production of up to 40 per cent of all fruit and vegetables – have suffered increasing ill health in recent years. This is due to factors including Colony Collapse Disorder, which wiped out almost two-thirds of the global commercial bee population in 2007.

Dr Kavanagh said there were over 20 million commercial bee colonies worldwide that could benefit from the product. “We will use all means, including partnering with leading producers of bee feeds, to accelerate uptake of our products.” The company, which will solely concentrate on exports, is conducting research and development to develop different formulations for other bee illnesses.

Speaking at the launch yesterday, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said Beemune was an example of how academia and industry were working together. NUI Maynooth president, Prof John Hughes, said the spin-out company proved Ireland “is providing research solutions to emerging global issues in every field”.