AquaBounty Awaiting FDA OK on Imported Fish Eggs
AquaBounty operates a facility in Albany
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMassachusetts-based AquaBounty Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AQB) has detailed alternatives for the full production plans it has for its aquaculture production operation in east central Indiana. The company says a U.S. Food and Drug Administration order is preventing the company from importing its AquAdvantage brand salmon eggs from Canada because of an Import Alert.
AquaBounty is awaiting the FDA’s final labeling guidance for the salmon that would be produced in the facility near Albany from the Canadian eggs. The company, which acquired the Indiana facility last year and announced FDA approval to raise salmon at the former Bell Fish Co. LLC property in April, says it is "fully prepared to comply with labeling requirements for its product in order for this process to conclude in the near term." While it awaits clearance related to the Canadian eggs, AquaBounty says it has begun stocking tanks with traditional Atlantic salmon eggs and has launched the growing process for those fish.
Chief Executive Officer Ron Stotish says "in this quarter, we completed our second sale of AquAdvantage Salmon harvested from our Panama farm and stocked our Indiana farm with traditional Atlantic salmon eggs. This stocking has allowed us to start operations at the facility, while we wait for the lifting of the import alert on AquAdvantage Salmon, which we anticipate in the second half of the year."
In April AquaBounty said, once production started, it would be its first U.S. production facility. The company says its AquAdvantage Salmon is a type of Atlantic salmon that has been bioengineered to grow to market size in about half the time of traditional farm-raising methods. AquaBounty Technologies is reporting a second quarter loss of $2.8 million, compared to a loss of $2.1 million during the same period a year ago.