ISSUE FOCUS 70 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2025 Dr. Kane Miller, the founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Axitan: “Whilst it can be helpful to think of endolysins as enzymes with antimicrobial activity specific to the pathogen being targeted, for any of this to be commercially relevant, they have to deliver consistently in real-world settings.” Feed & Additive talks to the founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Axitan, Dr Kane Miller, and his scientific team to better understand the power of endolysins and how the company has formulated them into products to improve feed efficiency and animal performance. A lab on an industrial park some 30 miles south west of Cambridge, England, in the London commuter town of Stevenage, might not have the caché of the San Francisco Bay area (USA) or Cambridge, Boston, but sitting within the UK’s biotech “Golden Triangle” of Oxford-London-Cambridge, it is rapidly establishing itself as a place of significant interest in the field of endolysins thanks to the pioneering work of a company called Axitan. “We have been exceptionally fortunate to be able to access leading minds throughout our development thanks to our proximity to three globally prominent universities,” explained Dr Kane Miller. “We were even more fortunate to meet with US investors from the ag sector relatively early in our journey meaning that today all of our global commercial operations can be run out of North America, led by our CEO, feed additives veteran, Alfred Zimmerman. Their involvement meant we were encouraged to look at issues through the lens of our customers – major animal protein producers – from the get-go and to fully understand their needs rather than just focusing on the science of endolysins for targeting pathogens that impact the livestock industry.” “That meant fully embracing the notion that if we were going to be successful in the reduction and replacement of antibiotics in the animal protein industry, we had to demonstrate their real-world economic benefits, not just the pathogen mitigation efficacy of endolysins. Or put more prosaically, the improved performance indicators such as weight HARNESSING ENDOLYSINS FOR FEED EFFICIENCY AND ANIMAL PERFORMANCE
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