Vytelle to set up lab in Queensland on back of IVF boom

The strength of the trend is such that the world's fastest-growing bovine IVF company, Vytelle, has now announced it will open a laboratory in Queensland in July.

It will be the company's 16th lab globally and follows expansion into New Zealand last year. Vytelle has just produced its 300,000th embryo.

The company's vice president of operations Dr Bruno Sanches, based in Dallas, told delegates at last week's National Angus in Conference in Tamworth that while IVF had traditionally been used as a last resort, it was now the first choice for those chasing rapid genetic gain in the beef game.

IVF had replaced flushing in the United States and South America and Vytelle expected Australia would follow that trend, he said.

It takes five generations - or 25 years in the bovine business - of using artificial insemination to achieve the same genetic progress that can be made with IVF, he said.

IVF in beef has traditionally been hampered by results but the technology now available delivers far more consistent results and has advantages such as no hormone use and the fact pregnant animals can be aspirated - the donor can still calve every year.

Conception rates were now around 50 per cent, on par with ET and AI at 55pc. Dr Sanches said when he started in this work 20 years ago, that figure was 25 to 30pc, such has been the advancement.

But the real game changer now is the ability to successfully freeze embryos, Dr Sanches said.

This changes the landscape in a country like Australia where logistics are an issue - big country, big herds, big distances.

"The large-scale adoption of IVF will be driven by the use of frozen embryos, more specifically the direct transfer embryos with consistent results," Dr Sanches said.

"Once you identify the best animals in your herd, we can multiply those animals faster.

"Because we don't use hormones we can repeat the process every seven days."

The other big advantage, he said, was the ability to leverage both female and male genetics where with AI it is only the male genetics.

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Such is Vytelle's faith in its Advance IVF technology, it will bring to Australia its new approach on costs.

No collection fee, visit fee or donor preparation fee will be charged. If no embryo is made, the producer pays nothing.

Success hinges on three pillars - donor management, the IVF process and recipient management, Dr Sanches said.

Eggs can be collected until the donor is 100 days pregnant. No hormones are used in the collection process.

"We bring the eggs to the lab, fertilise them and the process takes seven days to complete," Dr Sanches said.

"We develop embryos using a proprietary culture system with no fetal calf serum."

Vytelle looks to partner with existing veterinarians and technicians to perform the embryo transfers.

Because recipients are the major cost in this game, the ability to freeze surplus embryos is massive, Dr Sanches said.

There are two methods to freeze - direct transfer, which is the same technology used in flushing embryos, and vitrification. Vytelle uses DT.