Beyond the mutton in your briyani: A Malaysian breakthrough in biotech

2026-03-16 - 00:44

BAV CEO Noor Shazreena Ishak receiving in Moscow the APEC BEST award for 2025 for the UPM-engineered intranasal spray for ruminants. (BAV pic) PETALING JAYA: While we agonise every day on whether human vaccines are even safe anymore in a post-Covid world, the sheep, cattle — and even fish — have been quietly arriving at dining tables after being vaccinated in one form or another. Surprised? Don’t be. It is a genetically modified universe where science works overtime to produce food efficiently. Veterinary vaccines for pneumonic bacteria disease, or pneumonic pasteurellosis, are a US$11 billion market led by behemoths like Zoetis and Merck. Unlike the human sector, this market is regulated with little controversy. Even better: the Aussie lamb in your briyani might one day come from a herd vaccinated with a first-of-its-kind technology developed by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Biotech giants have long focused research and development on “big wins”—massive cattle ranches in the Americas, sheep stations in Australia, or industrial poultry farms in Europe. Their methods are traditional: needles, labour-intensive manual injections, and cold-chain logistics requiring constant refrigeration. For the world’s 2.5 billion goats and sheep, often raised by smallholders in the Global South, these solutions are too expensive or cumbersome. Enter Bio-Angle Vacs (BAV). Born from UPM’s lab, BAV is a disruptive force targeting a “blue ocean” that Western titans overlooked. A goat being immunised with STVac7 intranasal spray. (BAV pic) While Merck recently celebrated advancements in intranasal nozzles to simplify calf vaccination, BAV has claimed a world-first: the STVac7 intranasal spray, which removes the need for syringes altogether for small ruminants like goat and sheep. The brilliance of this story lies in its simplicity. The spray bottle looks like any you would find at a hairdresser’s. By moving away from the needle, UPM and BAV have eliminated injection-site abscesses — a major industry headache — and removed the “withdrawal period” that keeps livestock off the market for weeks post-vaccination. Further, the spray bypasses the “cold-chain” trap. In tropical climates, where a broken refrigerator can mean the loss of thousands in medicine, BAV’s heat-stable formulations are a game-changer for food security. “In the Global South, where a reliable electricity grid is not a guarantee, keeping a vaccine at minus 80 degrees is the biggest barrier to entry,” BAV CEO Noor Shazreena Ishak told FMT in the first media reveal of the project. “Our technology is stable at ambient temperatures. You don’t need a specialised freezer; you just need a shelf. The efficiency is equally impressive. While conventional vaccines allow about 100 animals to be vaccinated per hour, the BAV model reaches up to 500. An animal needs only two doses every six months, with a proven success rate against pneumonic pasteurellosis exceeding 98%. From its state-of-the-art facility at the UPM-MTDC Technology Centre III — the first bacterial-based GMP facility of its kind in Southeast Asia — BAV is scaling rapidly. With a footprint in 11 countries and a pipeline that includes “aquabooster” feed for fish, the company is proving that Malaysia is no longer just a consumer of global biotech. Lab to market: A journey of more than 35 years UPM’s animal immunisation journey began in 1986, when a young professor, Mohd Zamri Saad, joined as a veterinary pathologist. Over 12 years of post-mortems on the carcasses of goats and sheep, Zamri concluded their No 1 killer was pneumonic pasteurellosis. Prof Mohd Zamri Saad. A literature review also told him it was a global crisis. “Yet, most available vaccines focused on systemic injection —poking needles into animals, which is expensive, labour-intensive, and stressful,” he said. Zamri’s “eureka” moment came early into the study: He realised herds weren’t born with the disease; they contracted it through regular breathing. “The root was the respiratory tract; if we can enhance the protection of the respiratory tract directly, the organism cannot establish an infection.” The idea of an intranasal spray, simple enough for any farmer to administer, was born. For two decades, Zamri and his team conducted trials across Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak. The scientific grind caught BAV’s eye in 2008. Aiming for Aussie “gold” When BAV stepped in to commercialise the research, the challenge shifted from the lab to the “last mile.” Said Shazreena: “It was about making the process humane and accessible. We’re taking the ‘specialist’ requirement out of the paddock.” This effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. Last year, BAV received the Business Efficiency and Success Target (BEST) Award at the APEC ceremony in Moscow, validating its needle-free model as a blueprint for agricultural innovation. Following pilot programmes, the company has signed orders in Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Chad, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia, with talks ongoing in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey. BAV’s target is 1% of the global goat and sheep population—24 million animals—creating an annual market of US$160 million. The prized market, Shazreena says, will be Australia, which, like the US, sets the “gold standard” for agriculture. “Australia is not an easy market to enter and that’s exactly why it matters. Once a technology meets Australia’s standards, it sends a strong signal to the rest of the world.” Zamri concurs, noting the democratisation of his creation fulfils a greater ideal. “The beauty of this vaccine is that it was designed for the smallholder. The world is full of families raising livestock who desperately need this ease of use.” Since UPM’s spray is aimed at prevention, BAV’s outreach to Malaysia’s sourcing markets could theoretically streamline health-clearance obstacles currently faced by local importers, at least regarding pneumonic pasteurellosis. “We weren’t just taking research out of UPM; we were taking a solution that had been vetted for the realities of our climate,” Shazreena says. “That transition, from a university finding to a global product, defines our mission: To make Malaysia an exporter of high-tech agricultural solutions, not just a consumer.” Malaysia imports Australian sheep alongside goats from Indonesia, India, and Thailand. Most Australian imports are under a year old, producing tender, mild-flavoured lamb. Mutton comes from sheep over two years old and is tougher and gamier. It also refers to the local goat population, providing 400,000 animals annually. However, local goat remains expensive due to limited supply and leaner meat. Popular mamak eateries often serve lamb as “goat,” satisfying customers more discerning about taste than origin or sinewy details. BAV CEO Noor Shazreena Ishak. Imported livestock undergo two-week quarantines, usually at Port Klang, where veterinary department officials inspect for foot-and-mouth disease before slaughter. Since UPM’s intranasal spray prevents rather than cures, BAV’s outreach to sourcing markets could streamline health-clearance hurdles for local importers, at least against pneumonic pasteurellosis. In a world of constant conflicts and distressed supply chains, where food sustainability is the ultimate currency, the UPM-BAV breakthrough suggests the most impactful solutions won’t always come from the glass towers of New York or Basel. Sometimes, the future of what we eat starts in a lab in Serdang, ensuring that the lamb on a briyani plate in Sydney or a fish in a market in Jakarta is not only safe, but born from a level of ingenuity that is uniquely Malaysian.