StableLab on the rise

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

DECEMBER 7, 2013

StableLab on the rise

by Kelsey Riley

In June, Irish entrepreneur Heinrich Anhold put five years of research and development on the line when he launched StableLab, the first handheld blood test for equines. With StableLab, horse people would

for the first time be able to detect infection within minutes while at the horse's side,

eliminating the need for time-consuming and costly lab reports. Furthermore,

through the identification of Serum Amyloid A (SAA), a protein produced

by the liver to carry immune cells to the source of inflammation, users of StableLab would be able to detect and monitor infection before the horse

started to show outward signs.

For these reasons, StableLab has been an intriguing

revolution for both racing stables and stud farms. The results and growth since

the company's launch just five months ago, however, has been beyond even

the ambitious Anhold's wildest imagination.

"People are getting a lot more excited about the results

than we expected," Anhold explained. "There's been a few

interesting things that have come out of our case studies so far, which has really

helped us a lot."

For the next four days, Anhold will be on hand at the

American Association of Equine Practitioners Annual Conference in Nashville, Tennessee,

where Hagyards Equine Medical Institute and Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital will feature StableLab at their booths, in addition to presenting the compelling results of a series

of case studies conducted since the summer.

Anhold explained that partnerships with Lexington, Kentucky's,

two largest veterinary hospitals has been key in uncovering some exciting new uses of

StableLab.

"We've run 120 properly controlled case studies, and

what we've seen is that the marker we use, SAA, responds much more aggressively to infection

inflammation, and responds not very often in non-infection inflammation," Anhold said.

"That's a big surprise, because it was previously just an inflammatory response, and now what we

actually have is a marker of infection. It means you can be much more specific in

diagnosing what's wrong with the horse, and in understanding if the horse needs antibiotics or not.

"What we've also seen is that tests respond very rapidly in response to infection, and stay

elevated until the infection clears. That means the hospitals can use it to monitor if antibiotic

treatment is working or not. People are getting very excited about having a blood test that can do

that, because no other blood test has ever done that before."

Anhold also noted that StableLab, already popular in

training yards for monitoring the health of racehorses, has been widely adopted on stud farms for

the purpose of detecting diseases in young foals, which can prove lethal before outward signs

are apparent.

"The breeding farms are starting to use this as a

screening tool for diseases like rhodococcus," he said. "This is

something very new to be able to use it as a proper screening tool, not to

just keep an eye on foals and hope that you spot something in time.

This is something that can be used as part of a routine to really

control disease outbreak, and really understand what's happening."

The demand for StableLab has been such that its users

are now requesting a service rather than simply a product, Anhold

said. Therefore, in the near future, the company will begin

offering its clientele comprehensive reports to interpret the results of the tests, including

recommendations on its use and comparison of disease outbreak to other stud farms or

training yards in the area.

"It's going in a lot of directions at the minute, and

they're all going really well," Anhold declared. "It's just been a tremendous start for us, so we've been

very lucky. We had a product, we let it out there, and it's starting to create new markets and

new systems for people."