• Zendal has just received authorisation from the Spanish Medicines Agency (AEMPS) for use against EHE, an infectious viral disease affecting domestic and wild ruminants.  
• The Spanish biotech group prioritised the development of this new vaccine at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of Spain in the case of a health emergency.

O Porriño, 4 July 2024 – The Zendal group launches the first vaccine to prevent epizootic haemorrhagic disease virus serotype 8. It does so after receiving this week the temporary authorisation for use (1) from the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products, which allows its use in bovine species. To achieve this, the collaboration of the AEMPS has been essential, as it has always been sensitive to the needs of livestock farming, speeding up authorisations as much as possible without reducing the essential requirements to guarantee the quality, safety and efficacy of the product. 

(1 ) The temporary authorisation for use has been granted by the AEMPS to CZ Vaccines of the Zendal group.

EHD virus serotype 8 was first diagnosed in south-western Spain in November 2022. Subsequently, the spread of this disease, which particularly affects ruminants, was detected throughout the national territory, with the exception of the Balearic and Canary Islands. 

In order to facilitate access to this new product for the livestock sector in Spain, the biotechnology group based in O Porriño is prioritising the Spanish market in its sales plan for this vaccine. It will also do so with a first production phase of 2 million doses to be marketed by Vetia Animal Heath, a subsidiary dedicated to animal health.

In recent months, the Zendal group has been working intensively to obtain a vaccine that could prevent this disease that is affecting livestock farming in Spain. Thus, this inactivated vaccine of the virus has been obtained, which will be administered subcutaneously in two doses with an interval of 3 weeks.

The animal health area of the Zendal group has significant experience in the development of vaccines for animal health, with important milestones in its portfolio such as the development of vaccines for Paratuberculosis in cattle, sheep and goats; vaccines against Brucellosis in ruminants or against E. coli in pigs. Projects to which the Bluevac range of vaccines against Bluetongue disease against different serotypes of the virus is added and which, as with this new vaccine against EHD, developed in record time and supplied more than 100 million doses of bluetongue vaccine in Europe in 2008. 

About Zendal Group

Zendal is the corporate brand of the biotechnology group focused on the research, development, manufacture and commercialisation of human and animal vaccines and other high value-added pharmaceutical products for the healthcare sector. It has three R&D centres and several biopharmaceutical production plants in its laboratories in O Porriño, León, Barcelona and Paredes de Coura (Portugal).