Alpaca antibodies could make farmed salmon safer — if the science holds up

Sea lice cost the global salmon farming industry an estimated $4 billion a year in lost fish, stunted growth, and treatment expenses — and a Hamburg startup thinks alpacas are part of the answer. AquaNab has secured investment from Finnish fund Nordic Foodtech VC to develop nanoantibodies that salmon eat rather than absorb through stressful chemical baths. For Nordic Foodtech, it marks their first bet outside Scandinavia.

The problem with current treatments

Right now, salmon farmers treat sea lice infestations with chemical baths, hydrogen peroxide dips, or mechanical brushes that physically scrape parasites off fish. Each method is costly, traumatic for the animals, and increasingly scrutinized by regulators. Norway, Chile, and Canada have all tightened rules on chemical discharge into coastal waters. In Scotland, the SEPA sea lice framework — active since February 2024 — enforces stricter infestation limits on West Coast and Western Isles farms, raising the pressure on producers to find cleaner alternatives fast.

Consumer trust is also on the line. A UK public perception study published in 2024 found that detailed information about mechanical and chemical delousing methods reduces confidence in farmed salmon — a headache for retailers already sensitive to welfare concerns.

Nanoantibodies from alpaca blood

AquaNab's approach uses miniaturised antibody fragments derived from alpaca blood. These nanoantibodies are small enough to pass through a fish's intestinal wall, enter the bloodstream, and neutralise parasites from the inside — no netting, no tanks, no toxic runoff. They're mixed directly into feed pellets.

The science behind the team is credible. Chief scientific officer Alejandro Rojas was among the first researchers globally to develop neutralising nanoantibodies against SARS-CoV-2. CEO Ruth Tamara Montero is a fish immunologist trained at Germany's Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut. The company also notes that nanoantibodies can be grown cheaply in bacteria or yeast, which matters for scaling production to commercial volumes.

Still early days

AquaNab remains a lab-stage company. Efficacy trials on commercial salmon farms are only just beginning, according to The Fish Site, and the investment amount has not been disclosed. Field results, mortality-reduction figures, and a regulatory timeline — the technology must clear veterinary medicinal product classification before any farm can use it — are all absent. No UK-based rival is working in the same nanoantibody-for-feed space, which gives AquaNab an opening, but clearing that regulatory bar will take years, not months.

Investors are betting on a platform, not just one product. The same nanoantibody delivery system could, in theory, target bacterial or viral diseases across multiple fish species. Whether that ambition survives contact with commercial-scale trials and regulators remains to be seen.