Delivering Genetic Progress

During the year, progress against our strategic objectives included:

• Continuing to harness genomic science to drive porcine genetics that benefit animals and customers, for example, improving piglet resilience to reduce pre-wean mortality
• Achieving industry leading elite and proprietary dairy genetics through De Novo Genetics, our joint venture with De-Su Holsteins
• Increasing the number of dairy sires ranking highly for TransitionRight^™ traits, which improve daughters’ resilience to health problems in the period after giving birth
• Continuing to grow our range of proprietary selection indices for beef genetics, based on identification of the drivers of profitability in target markets and segments

• Conducting in-house genome editing of beef and dairy embryos to target the CD18 gene, seeking proof of concept that a single change to this gene can improve resilience to Bovine Respiratory Disease
• Working with our joint venture partner, RenOVAte Biosciences, to edit the CD163 gene in elite PIC genetics, to produce pigs which resist PRRSv infection, and having patents issued in the US and Europe

• Using our proprietary technology to produce Sexcel for Genus ABS, establishing a new quality standard for sexed bovine genetics and giving customers a major performance advantage
• Establishing IntelliGen Technologies to market and license our technology to third parties, signing agreements with partners in Norway and India (the world’s largest dairy market)