A pig farmer can know within 20 minutes whether a sick animal carries a dangerous pathogen, without sending samples to a lab. Current diagnostic tests for porcine infections take a week or longer and typically look for only one pathogen at a time. This delay forces farmers and vets to treat symptoms blindly, often leading to unnecessary antibiotic use and allowing infections to spread through the herd before results come back. The IMPACT-Farm Alliance—a partnership between Imperial College London, startup ProtonDx, animal health company Ceva, pig producer Pilgrim’s, and the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock—is developing a handheld device called Lacewing that detects multiple pathogens simultaneously and advises on vaccine strategy, all on the farm in under 20 minutes. If successful, Lacewing could transform how the UK pig industry manages infectious disease outbreaks. Faster diagnosis means targeted treatment, fewer antibiotics, and reduced herd losses. It also cuts the need to ship samples long distances, lowering emissions. The device will be validated in 50 farms before commercial launch. This is applied technology development, building on a proven prototype from an earlier Innovate UK programme, not fundamental science.
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Infections spread within pig herds can be catastrophic for farmers, causing deaths, decreasing productivity and promoting the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Diagnostics and vaccines are the best tools to combat infectious diseases. However, current porcine testing takes a week or more to complete and often focus on one pathogen at a time, preventing farmers and vets to quickly and accurately detect and deal with serious porcine infections. Consequences include slowing down appropriate treatment, prescribing antibiotic unnecessarily and risking broader herd contamination. To tackle this issue, we have put together large R&D partnership **IMPACT-Farm Alliance**: Imperial/Pilgrims/ProtonDx/Ceva/CIEL Taskforce for Farming Advancements in Health Technology to develop a simple and affordable tool for farmers to quickly identify infections affecting their pigs and inform their vaccine strategy. UK startup ProtonDx leads the partnership, which also includes academic institution Imperial College London (Faculty of Medicine and Dyson School of Design Engineering), the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), global animal health company Ceva and world-leading pig producer Pilgrim's. Our solution, Lacewing, is capable of detecting the presence of pathogen and informing on vaccine strategy on farm in under 20 minutes, without needing a laboratory. We proved the feasibility of the approach in a previous InnovateUK programme. We will now turn this solution into a manufacturable prototype for use in farms, and validate it in 50 farms, paving the way to successful market introduction. Lacewing will transform the farming landscape in the UK and internationally by allowing to manage infections in pig herds, increasing productivity, avoiding shipping over long distances (towards net-zero emissions), decreasing the risk of antimicrobial resistance and supporting vaccine strategy.
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