NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Merck Animal Health will market Neogen's genomic tests for assessing the genetic potential of replacement dairy heifers under an agreement announced today.
Neogen's Ingenity Dairy Heifer Program consists of genomic tests that commercial dairy producers can use to evaluate heifer health traits, including net merit, pregnancy rate, productive life, and somatic cell score, as well as yield traits, such as the animal's milk in fat pounds, fat percentage, protein pounds, and protein percentage. The tests include data on all the key genetic biomarkers needed for the US Department of Agriculture-Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory genomic evaluation, Neogen said.
Merck Animal Health will market two version of the Ingenity test. Ingenity-Prime is for evaluating the genetic merit of a commercial dairy heifer. It features almost 26,000 genetic markers and includes disease and performance trait markers. Ingenity-Select features about 7,000 genetic markers for disease and performance traits.
Neogen Vice President of Animal Safety Terri Morrical said that Neogen will benefit from having access to Merck Animal Health's extensive dairy sales and technical services organization. Meanwhile, Merck Animal Health customers will have greater access to the Ingenity technology.
Financial and other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.