World First Combination Spot-on Technology For Sheep

The average sheep farmer is 58 years old, and there’s nothing glamorous about the labor-intensive practice of drenching sheep. But a new development from Donaghys Dunedin based scientists of a ‘spot-on’ product, Scorpius Elite, saves immense time, physical effort and stress on the animal to combat internal parasites. It’s also helping in the battle against drench resistance.

It’s a world first for sheep and was conjured up from a conversation at Saturday morning sport back in 2012. With robust science through several trials from New Zealand owned and operated Donaghys, Scorpius Elite is another New Zealand innovation success story.

“I was talking to a farming friend who had worked out orally drenching his lambs was equivalent to an extra labour unit over summer on his farm, he made the comment that there had to be a better way to protect his lambs from parasites and I took it back to our lab,” says Donaghys Managing Director, Jeremy Silva.

He took the concept back to Donaghys to see if they could design a solution.

“We discussed ideas with our formulation scientists and other farmers facing similar issues, working out what was achievable and that kicked off the development project for Scorpius Elite,” he says.

The objective was to find an easy and effective way to treat lambs for internal parasites while reducing the chances of developing drench resistance, which meant it needed to be a combination product.

Using their experience from combination cattle pour-ons, Donaghys selected a novel combination of eprinomectin and levamisole as the active ingredients. Eprinomectin is a well-known, safe, potent and effective anthelmintic used commonly in cattle but is new for use in sheep in New Zealand and Levamisole has been used widely in sheep and cattle in New Zealand in oral, injectable, and pour-on formulations for over 40 years.

The team tried several different formulations to help overcome the unique challenges from the wool covered skin of sheep. They were keen to find a way to facilitate both active ingredients penetrating the skin while not harming the skin or wool and keeping the active ingredients stable to maintain an acceptable shelf life.

After the extensive testing in the lab, the final formulation was selected and patented, then tested in the field. Initially they were looking for a spot-on formulation that was just as effective as an oral formulation but Scorpius Elite performed better than expected.

“We did a study in the Hawke’s Bay on a farm with a variety of parasite species with severe levamisole resistance and Scorpius Elite had 100% efficacy.

This efficacy wasn’t just due to the addition of eprinomectin to the formulation but due to the fact that levamisole was being applied as a spot-on rather than an oral,” Silva says.

The product is administered as a spot-on on the back line between the shoulder blades. The drench nozzle is pushed through the fleece, applying the product directly to the skin. The active ingredients are then absorbed into the bloodstream via the winning Donaghys’ formulation which utilises a unique combination of solvents and various excipients.

“As a company, Donaghys pride themselves on bringing innovative solutions to the market to make life easier for farmers while maintaining production, and Scorpius Elite heralds a new era in the control of gastrointestinal parasites.

As with all of Donaghys anthelmintic range, Scorpius Elite is sold exclusively through Farmlands.

The time and physical effort saved by farmers is what makes this innovation truly exciting, and the success against drench resistance is the cherry on top. We look forward to hearing from farmers who give it a crack this drenching season.”

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