A NEW Zealand-designed drenching system has received an Australian International Design Award - but the new sheep drench it is packaged with isn’t available in Australia.
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Novartis’s Zolvix sheep drench, which represents the first new class of drench in more than 25 years, had its world launch in New Zealand nearly 12 months ago but is yet to clear Australia’s regulatory assessments.
Containing a completely new molecule, Zolvix is an answer to the mounting resistance to current drenches, and a way to extend the functional life of those drenches.
Zolvix is marketed with the Optiline drenching system, a complete makeover of traditional drenching systems by New Zealand company Simcro.
To accompany the launch of Zolvix, Novartis challenged a number of agri-tech companies to redesign sheep drenching systems.
Simcro’s Optiline design won, after director Rod Walker took inspiration from feeding poddy calves with milk from a beer bottle.
That provided the cues for a drench gun design that keeps the hand and wrist in line with the thrust of the gun into the animal’s mouth.
The traditional pistol-grip drench gun sits with the nozzle pointing away from the operator, meaning that hand and wrist have to rotate into unusual positions during operation.
The Optiline design has the nozzle protruding from the base of the operator’s hand, ensuring natural presentation of the nozzle and greater control.
This currently means little to Australian sheep producers, who are still waiting to get access to Zolvix and Optiline.
A Novartis Australia spokesman said the company is anxious to get Zolvix launched in Australia, which has the potential to become the world’s largest market for the drench.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) has in the past week posted its assessment of Zolvix on its website for public comment.
APVMA spokesman Simon Cubit was unable to say how much longer the assessment process would take, but did say Zolvix was “at the very latter end of the process”.
Dr Cubit noted that the Zolvix assessment process was still well within statutory time limits.
While many of the toxicity studies on the new molecule can be taken from overseas work, Dr Cubit said tests like those assessing the “environmental fate” of the molecule have to be performed under Australian conditions.
Novartis’s application to the APVMA for Zolvix assessment was filed in July 2008.
