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New help for businesses seeking to develop diagnostic tests for TB in cattle

Diagnostic Tests for TB in Cattle

In its March 2020 response to Professor Sir Charles Godfray’s review of the bovine TB strategy for England, the Government committed to funding the provision of samples to assist with the validation of novel cattle TB diagnostics to OIE standards.

A limited number of samples are available from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) on a no-cost basis to businesses seeking to further develop their own novel tests for TB in cattle.

Enquiries for the provision of samples should be made in the first instance to Dr Nick Coldham at APHA (nick.coldham@apha.gov.uk) by completing the Request form for provision of samples for validation of TB Diagnostics.

This must include details of the innovative test, with current development and validation status, and sample requirements. The purpose of the samples and the dataset they will contribute to must be clearly stated (i.e. for OIE validation etc.). Provision of any samples under this scheme will require a Materials Transfer Agreement (MTA) with APHA. 

These samples would be supported by authenticated meta-data describing herd and animal testing history, infection status and sample provenance. In all cases sample origin confidentiality will be strictly maintained. All samples will be provided blinded to enable an assessment of diagnostic test performance in terms of specificity and specificity.

Requestors must share the test performance data with APHA for un-blinding (all data will be kept fully confidential and this will in no way constitute transfer of any rights or intellectual property of test developers).

Available cattle samples include fresh blood, frozen serum, frozen blood cells, or tissues upon reasonable demand, if logistically possible - but APHA retains the right to refuse. Samples are necessarily derived from cattle examined and/or tested in the course of APHA’s TB surveillance activities, or during experimental work. We envisage that the majority of samples provided will be frozen bovine serum.

Issued: 23 February 2021