Paisley, Scotland-based biotechnology firm WellFish Tech announced a new commercial partnership with Bergen, Norway-based Salmon Group.
According to a release from WellFish Tech, the two companies will work together to "provide systematic blood biomarker analysis based on blood biochemistry across sites and companies within the network." Salmon Group represents 40 owner companies and 62 food-producing companies along the Norwegian coast, collectively producing more than 220,000 tons of salmon and trout annually.
That network, through the partnership, will generate fish health data to be used for biological processes, both operational and regulatory, which will help aid in biological decision-making.
“We need solutions that actually tell us what is happening inside the fish, not just what we can observe from the outside,” Salmon Group CEO Jan Olav Langeland. “Blood biochemistry gives us that, and when we can see the fish health status across sites and fjord systems, it opens up a completely different level of coordination and joint preparedness. That is what this agreement is about.”
WellFish Tech further explained that the "group-level view" granting owner companies the ability to see conditions across Salmon Group's entire production base, instead of looking at each individual company, is valuable because member companies share fjord systems. With this dashboard, neighboring sites can coordinate, share experiences, and coordinate contingency and response plans in the event of biological challenges like sea lice and disease.
“Bringing systematic blood biomarker monitoring to a network of this scale is a significant step, not just for WellFish Tech but for what evidence-based fish health management can look like across the industry,” WellFish Tech CEO Charlie Granfelt said. “It shows that clinical biochemistry monitoring can scale from a single site to an entire network, and that is exactly the direction we believe the industry is heading. We are looking forward to working with the central administration and the companies of Salmon Group.”
