Farmed salmon are dying at industrial scale — and the cure has become a leading cause of death.
The cost
1 IN 6
Farmed Atlantic salmon now die during a single production cycle at sea. Norway's sea-phase mortality has held between 15% and 17% for five consecutive years — with some production areas exceeding 25%.
Norwegian Veterinary Institute — Fish Health Report 2024
67 MILLION
Farmed salmon lost in Norway in 2025 alone — dead, discarded, escaped. Roughly 180,000 fish, every single day, from one country's farms.
Norwegian Veterinary Institute / Directorate of Fisheries, 2025
26.6%
of those deaths are recorded as physical trauma — inflicted not by the sea louse, but by the thermal and mechanical delousing treatments meant to remove it.
Norwegian Veterinary Institute — Fish Health Report 2024
The opportunity
Virradax designs antiparasitic molecules computationally — engineered against the biology of the sea louse long before any fish is touched. No thermal shocks. No mechanical stripping. Designed in silico. Validated in water.
DESIGN
Proprietary AI models generate and screen candidate molecules in silico — targeting the host-settlement biology of the salmon louse, Lepeophtheirus salmonis, before a single fish is handled.
PRECISION
Compounds built to spare the host, the farm, and the ecosystem around it. The opposite of fighting a parasite by thermal-shocking the fish.
VALIDATION
Every candidate moves from model to tank on evidence — validated in water, at the mucus interface where the louse actually attaches.
The stakes: sea lice already drain roughly 9% of farm revenue every production cycle — about $0.46 on every kilo harvested.