Hello everybody and welcome to today's webinar with the webinar vet. My name is Catherine Bell and I'm delighted to share your session today, which has been kindly sponsored by the Mavic Laboroire. And before we get started, I've just got a couple of housekeeping bits, to share.
So we're really pleased that the presentation today is being delivered live, which means you'll have the chance to put your questions directly to our speaker, . During the Q&A session at the end, so as the presentation goes along, if there is something that comes to mind, please just pop the question into the Q&A box, and we'll do our very best to get to those questions later on. As always, for those who might be wondering, the recording of this presentation and the certificates will be available, once the session has been uploaded to the webinar vets platform.
So we usually try and do this within 24 to 48 hours. So that will be available for you as well very soon. So back to today's session, so I'm delighted to be joined by Francois Machelet, who has been a doctor of veterinary medicine since 1980.
After establishing his own clinic in 1983, he has gone on to hold a number of leadership positions within the veterinary profession. He served as CEO of Metavet Group from 2017 to 2022, overseeing 14 clinics, and since 1987 has been the CEO of Demovic Laboroire. So a big thank you once again for joining us today, Francois, and I will hand over to you now for your presentation, please.
Thank you, thank you very much. Yes, the Mavic is a laboratory of wholesaler in veterinary medicine in France agreed by registered by the government and also we developed some a lot of product for animal welfare. And, especially in, especially in litter, cat litter, but also in grooming, grooming product and so on.
Yes, we are cat litter experts and, for this reason, we have identified the problem of, the cats, hiding their illness and symptoms. Can you put the next slide, please? OK, thank you.
Yes. Cats are fascinating creatures. They are hunters, but, at the same time, small enough to be considered as prey.
And like any prey animal, they have learned to hide their weakness because in the wild weakness attracts predators. Over thousands of years, cats have perfected this instinct. Even our domestic cats.
Will often hide signs of illness. Until the very last moment when their body can no longer keep up the halogen of good health. That's why so many owners.
Only notice a problem. When their cat stops eating, moves less or begins. To drink excessively.
By then, the illness is often already advanced. And of course, every cat owner who has gone through this. Wishes they had noticed earlier.
This is exactly Why we created the Nooor Health metre. Monitoring little To help detect signs of illness before it's too late. What are the next slide, please?
Yes. What are the difficulties with urine tests? Naturally, urine is a very good me to to make some test and to discover which kind of disease could affect the the animals in general and people also in general through urine, a lot of medium physiologic medium pass and and give give some ideas and and proof of some a lot of disease but with cats.
It's a It's a challenge, you know, you can't simply ask your cats to pee on a test strip. It won't, it won't do that. OK, it's not like people.
So to analyse your urine, it's necessary to go in a clinic. And that need to use a catheters through the urethra, tract or extract directly, urine from the bladder, well, with a needlectosyesis. That's invasive.
Stressful And only possible at the vet's office. At home this is clearly impossible. But by chance every day cats use their litter box.
To emit the urine without stress and this. Is the reason why we ask ourselves what if the litter itself became the test strip. That's how the Neodo health monitoring litter was born.
It contains special indicators. Similar to those used in urine tests? That can change colour to reveal important abnormalities.
Things like pH. I'll be mean Next, please. Billirubin, blood, and glucose.
Let's take a closer look at the key issues this letter can reveal. First, pH PH problem. I think aturin should be slightly.
Acidic or at least. Neutral, but slightly acidic, but with poor quality food, especially in the cats, urine can become too alkaline. Leading to crystals and dangerous blockage.
This blockage occur, at most to the male cats, made neutered cats because you know that the cat's penis is, . Make a, you know, make a S. There is a curve and inside the curve, the stones, rs accumulate them and, and coagulate together and make a block it can block totally the, the, ureters diameter.
And if our litter turns green or blue. It's a warning sign. So Next, Second parameter albumin.
Albumin this protein should stay in the blood. Not leaking into urine. When it does it, It points often to kidney problems.
High blood pressure or even diabetes, I won't, I will not . I will not detail the, the, the, the. The pathology albumin revealed because you all know this.
As good as me. Then Billy Ribin Urine should never contain bilirubin. If it does, it may mean liver disease or red blood cell breakdown, serious issues that require immediate veterinary care.
No, blood in urine. Sometimes you can see the blood. Sometimes it's invisible.
If you have a macroscopic blood sample in the urine, naturally the litter will reveal it because of the white colour of the litter and the, the, the, the, the blood spot on the litter directly through the urine emission. But if the, the what we call occult blood, if the blood is not seeable in urine, emitted in very small quantities, you need a a reagent to reveal the, the blood in urine. So our metre.
Detects the blood. Add so little concentration as a 0.4 milligramme per litre of urine.
And the blood naturally means. Some infections, some bladder erosion, some, tumour or. If any, trauma.
A lot of. Finally, we have the detection of glucose. Normally, the kidneys reabsorb all glucose, glucose.
But when blood sugar is too high. As in diabetes, glucose spills into the urine and the litter turns purple. The small detectors we put inside turns purple.
The small detectors we have to put on the litter turns purple. Maybe we can go to the next one. To explain, .
How we obtain the nolometer. First, in the year 200, 2005. We began to work to put dye and reagents, you can find on the lapsticks, urinary lapsticks directly in the litter.
And finally after some words, some year of working we obtained a US patent in 2011. Naturally, the patent was obtained. On our laboratory process.
And but to pass from the laboratory process where every parameters are well defined, well controlled to industrial process. To put that in the cat litter, it takes some time. And because naturally you must absolutely guarantee the last thing in the time because when you produce a litter, it comes from the producers.
Then, it goes to the wholesaler and then to retail or to the clinics and be and stay maybe sometime there before to be used by the cat owners. So you must have a long stability. Our cat litter, we have tested it, it has at least, at least 3 years of warranty of stability and effectiveness.
We don't, we don't put any expiry date on our product because, for the moment we have 2 years, but after 3 years, well, if, if it is stored in normal conditions, you have the entire effectiveness of the catheter. Finally, finally, we, we, we produced, the, the catheter 1st, 1st we produced the litter able to detect, to make a pH scale and to detect albumin and bilirubin and microscopic blood. Naturally, we were copied several times by a lot of people.
That's the problem, every creators and every, every, scientific face are facing. To produce, but to produce the occult blood detection and and especially, and moreover, the glucose detection. It was much more difficult because we need to have granules.
That's less the, the, the same time as the rest of the litter, but also not make no interference with the rest of the reagent we are putting in the litter to further for, for the first revealer. But it takes, it took, it took so long, it took several years to, to obtain these results, and we, obtained these results, 2 years ago, about 22 years ago, then we, we, we began to produce the granule and to verify that, it's, it acts in various conditions it stay last activity, in, at room temperature and so and so. Next, please.
On this, slide, you can see the presentation of the first presentation of our last granule. They are produced in sachet of 500 reagents, 500 granule reagents. To be sprayed on top of the litter and so they can be used in most litter, this one.
The colour will turn purple in presence of glucose and blue or blue in presence of blood. We produce separately those two granules because it's impossible to produce that in the same on the same granule but the both reagents. To ensure their conservation.
We put them in a small metallic sachet. And in vacuum vacuum session. Those, we are not those detectors are able to be used in in all kind of litter, not the pH scale because you know that a lot of .
Cat litter and tonight, recycled paper cat litter, some wood cat litter, have, . Alanine pH and so it will give a fast reaction. But this one are very, very independent of the substrate.
Can we go further? OK. So you can see there, we put our sachet.
In in the whole litter now we have the sachet to be set on various litter but we produce also the cat litter. Able to work? Having the all the detection inside.
What it detects. So as you say, say, OK, pH level, normal pH is, yellow. If it's yellow like ordinary urine colour, no problem.
If it becomes green, it can, it may sign the presence of IPH, albumin, bilirubin. If it, if you see a red spot, on the, the urine, on the white, substrate of the urine. It it it signs micro microscopic blood.
If the detector turned blue. If you see the blue, it's very, very active alkaline cat litter, but the detectors don't, don't react with the, the, the pH. The pH is inside the litter.
The detector turns blue when you have some blood. Even occult blood and purple if the glucose term as you can see we have made some you can see there are several detectors in in this catheter you have approximately 100 detectors of glucos and 100 detectors of. Blood.
You can see that on a bag of 1.5 kg of Nolodor because we need only a very small quantities of silica gel to to accommodate a cat. Standard cut you in one month.
You, You, with 100 detectors, it's far enough. Yes, no litter is based on our silica. And .
It's important to . To note that the quality of silica gel is very important as you can see the the the the the granule of silica gel are very fine in this way. It could be bigger, but we use the finest way because .
City is could be very different. Naturally, all silica gels, . Cha As a manner, a very, very effective manner, absorb moistures and in doing so, it dehydrates droppings very quickly while instantly absorbing urine.
Because the droppings are dehydrated, they practically lose their odour and don't stick to the shovel. When you scoop them out of the litter box to throw them in the trash or down the toilet. It's the reason why, for this reason, we use silica cat litter.
Because it's very, very clean. And second, the silageel has the ability to trap pigments and odours and allow the water to evaporate. Allowing to be used multiple times without losing effectiveness, and this is important for the for economic reason and waste reason.
To bring us to its second advantage, which is. That is . Material is environmentally friendly and waste free because indeed 1.5 kg of nolaor regular litter and also half metre litre allows you to control the litre odour for a standard cat for one month as I told you previously.
Which is not only economical but also. Fri for environment and because it generates much less waste than other litter. To renew the ability of the litter to absorb urine, it's very simple to stir the litter daily after removing the droppings, to bring the wet part back to the surface so that the water evaporates and the litres regenerate.
This ability is present in all kinds of silica naturally, but depending on the quality of their manufacturer, they retain it for a varying length of time. Our no matter we want, it works during one month for one cat. But A lot of other ordinary city car jail cat litter, they work.
Only 2 weeks for 2 kg or something like this, and it's important to know why. Because, this. Is in relation with the the diameter of the the.
Capillary channel. That are, inside the Cicaop Strait. Giving its sporosity and is it's absorption strength of water.
Therefore silage with a smaller pore. An internal capillary diameter has a stronger absorption capacity than silica gel with a larger internal capillary diameter. The smaller the capillary diameter, the more capillaries they are per unit of volume.
So more absorb better absorption and also increase the amount of liquid, the silica gel renewal can absorb. To understand how a quality difference in silicael can occur, you need to understand how they are made. Sidicael is made of sand.
This sand is heated at. 1400. Such as grade In a furnace, and when it is molten at this temperature, sodium hydroxide is added.
Soda. A chemical reaction then occurs producing sodium silicate. This sodium silicate is then cooled.
And brought into contact with an aqueous solution of sulfuric acid. The reaction between sulfuric acid and Soda? Produced a pasty solution of silicon dioxide.
So you see there are some chemical reactions. These are the same for all silica. This paste is then placed on containers.
In thin layer layers and bake in a surface for this. Why thin layers layers, it's to be dehydrated because not only, OK, after the erection, you have the silicon dioxide and you have also chemical, you have also sodium, sodium sulphate and also water and you need to sodium sulphate precipitate and sodium water, you need to evaporate it. And then it's the, the, the, the, the step where the the quality of silica is made.
Because, the quality of silica gel depends on the temperature and pressures used to bake this paste. Indeed, if the baking temperature and pressure in the oven are high. The water bubbles that evaporate from inside the silica paste.
Create some very thin capillary from the inside of the paste to the surface of the of the silica. While, if you bake that at low, lower temperature, lower pressure, The bubble evaporates more rapidly and are bigger, and they create microcapillary channel, but larger, larger diameter. And with the same quantity of paste, you understand clearly that very small diameter will have very thick in proportion not it's microscopic scale but very thick wall and very solid wall.
If you have larger larger diameter in the capillary. You have thinner wall and not that solid wall. It's why when you put water, when you're in debate water on silica, you often listen a crack, a creep it, you know, that that it's reputation.
With no, you, you won't, you won't hear this reputation because the structure of the sila remain intact, and it's a reason why it will act and act and act all the time and renew, renew, renew it's possibility. OK. Now, next.
Please. In conclusion, in conclusion. Our no other health matter.
Act like a thermometer. It's an early warning tool. That reveal.
Problem, possible problem in the cats. It's not a diagnosis. Like a thermometer gives you the temperature.
It it don't, it don't tell you the reason for why the people or the or the or the the the animal have the fever, you know. With, with this kind of of, of litter, the cat owners can act early, even before. The symptoms, the beginning symptoms.
And then consult the veterinarian. And veterinarian and nurse can recommend Norador as proactive health care because they . Together they will help the the the cats to to stay healthier.
If it's, if there is no no disease, the people are are peace of mind, you know, they are reinsured and they say, OK, my cat is OK, so they can maybe use an ordinary catheter. 2 months, 23 months, following, and each 3 months, by example, no matter to verify is if the if the problem is, is, is some problem is coming. When they discover the vets make a diagnosis, when they discover the problem, the cats are the problem, they have to use the neuro metre.
Each time. It's very economic, so it's not a problem. It's it's not a it's not expensive problem.
It's very economic and it, it led the people to know if the cat is coming better after the treatment of the veterinarian or, after some time the, the, the change, the the change in exchange in a. In a diet, you know, a lot of, cats disease can be, cured at the very beginning moment by, moving, to, some, some special, special pet food. And naturally, if a cat had a, had a diabetes, he, he needs to have, insulin, injection, daily insulin injection, or, and, and the people they want to know if the, if the if the treatment is effective, so if the cat, urinates on the cat litter and have no purple, by example, .
Detection It's, it's because the treatment is OK if there is some purple detection. They have to improve the dose, modify slightly the treatments, or come to a special pad, plus the, the insulin injection or special pad that allow the, the, the, the glucose to be, to be wiped out the, the, the body. So you know, it's.
It's a a constant. Way of monitoring the cat's health. Now if you ask a question, I will repeat because I have spoken a lot.
Well, thank you very much. We also have just a little video that we that we wanted to show you of our macho cat, which was the first product we initially created and that could maybe give you a little bit of an insight . Of what we do.
So this is the metro cat litter so that will detect different pH levels and so it's not the health metre we've talked more in detail and this one is currently our best seller product and we're very popular amongst vets in Europe. So, please feel free if you have any questions to ask after the video. Nuo litter also exists in a Healthwatch version.
Thanks to the way the litter changes colour when your cat's urine touches it, you have a daily report on its health. Consult your vet if the colour isn't yellow or orangey yellow. Or if you have the slightest dud.
That's another advantage offered by Nullaor litter that will help you look forward to many happy, worry-free years with your cat. Thank you so much, that was such an interesting presentation. You covered a lot of ground there in such a small space of time, so thank you very much.
If anybody has any questions that they would like to put to our speaker, please feel free to, put them in the chat box now. We also, we do have a few actually that have come through already, so somebody is asking, are there any samples available to test? Yes, I have a 1st, 1st question of Lorna, let's say, what happens if you use another catheter, not silica-based?
If you use another cat catheter, not silica-based, you can use the detector, the small granule detector with any of the catheter because they are really, . Stable enough not to react with other components of the catheter. Naturally, you cannot have the the albumin, the bilirubin, and, and the pH detection.
You may have the, the microscopic blood detection if the le catheter is white enough, but, to have the blood occult blood and and the blood in general, blood and glucose, you can work with any of inhibitor. Another one, will this. Very useful product be on sale to the general product food supermarket, perma and Petra.
Yes, we have put the The granules on how does it call that a sachet of 3, you know, . I don't find a word in English immediately. Blisters maybe a little blisters blister yeah yeah blisters and also in a box of 10 to be sold sachette by sachette by the vet or by the specialised pet shop at the, at the, at the cashier, you know, all of these sachets are have a barcode, so you can sell it one by one, it's not a problem.
And the, the wall cat litter inside containing the, the both, the both, all the 5 parameters will be sold on on the shelf in pet shop in, everywhere I guess, and also veterinarians if they are OK to do that. I guess it's the same in France as as in France. Don't hesitate if my response, did, some, comments to you.
Lorna, give me another comment. OK, thank you, Lorna. Can this litter be used, for example, with clay-based bi-based catheter?
Yes, yes, it can be used. Naturally with clumping, clay, catheter, some of the granules will be trapped inside the ball, you know, and maybe not. Fully seeable, but they are if you put 1/5 of a sachet of each detectors on the cat litter, it means 100 detectors, 10 granules.
I guess there is enough granules to be seeable even in the clamping balls. Margaret, Margaret Roberts. What about cats that urinate outside, keeping them inside to use the litter might be stressful, and if the cat has slower urinary tract disease, this isn't helpful.
Naturally. For cats, but also for dogs and people, you can use the granule to put on the urine urine if you see some urine flack. On the, on, on the earth, you put some granule inside and you have the reveal the, the, the, the, the results.
Anyway, as well. So you can use it in very, very, you get it everywhere. Hayley, Hayley, tells me, hi Francois, thank you for a good talk.
I have two questions. Where is the best place to buy the litter in the UK? And in future, do you think it will be possible to use the to estimateuric specific gravity?
for, for, for, for the place to be, to be bought the litter, I will let Mao reply because I don't, I am, I'm not in charge of the UK, UK sector. I guess that if you have, buying, buying group or wholesaler to sell to, to veterinarian, they will store the product and you will be able to buy from them, if you. If you, if you are in a corporate, probably they will, they will deal directly with the Manon to have their, their stock.
I don't know, I can, I cannot reply, but it would be very easy. this litter are already sold by a small, wholesaler, which, but he doesn't work with a veterinarian clinic and, I guess he's only working with his own, own, clientry. Estimate to estimate you in specific gravity.
No. No, I, I, I won't, I won't say it's able to do that. But you know, if you have a problem with a specific gravity, you will have a a lot of other problems that would be detected by the litter in another way.
So by the vet, once the, the, the cat has been brought by the vet, the vet is able to make not only specific gravity, but a lot of other tests. And also echography and a lot of of other exams that allow the vets to make the diagnosis. We don't want to have a litter that make all diagnosis because you know that way it's not a good way to to for for the for the animal health.
Will it Fiona, thank you. Will it be sold overseas? Yes.
Yes. No problem. Lorna again, thank you.
Are there any free sample available for handing? Absolutely, absolutely, Manon will, will, will handle this problem of, of free sample. We will, we have sent to our, large quantities of free sample for you to make your own, opinion.
How long does it take for Noor to start working? And can it be mixed with other litre sun? The, the, the reaction is, is quite instantly, instantly, and naturally it can be mixed with other litre sand, absolutely like, I, replied, with a clay litter, whatever sand, the detectors, naturally I say it again, the, the pH component won't be a sold.
Either as with a silica gel catter because we cannot be sure that the other litre won't change when ones occur in false positive or false negative reaction. We need, we need to have a substrate silica gel is quite neutral, slightly acidic, so it's not, it's not a bad thing. And we work with that for the pH and albumin and, and, and protein because, you know, you can have a lot of protein reaction, reacting with our reagent and giving fast reaction on wood, with catheter sometime or recycled paper catheter with the with the, the ink which is inside, you know, it's not, it's not reproductable.
So if we want to be rigorous, we must act with some, but with blood and glucose, it's possible for anything. Lorna again, yes, . It's available through Zopru.
Biar and Amazon stock it. No, it's not already available through Zoplus, Biar and Amazon. Maybe it come, it will, it will, it will be because you know Amazon BTB is is the is the discount part of Amazon, no, not of the pardon, Amazon naturally they, they immediately if if there is a success they want to have it, but we will, we will manage to have a special terms with veterinarians, clinic because, as in France.
We, we, keep, the veterinary channel, privileged for him to be able to, continue to sell the product even where if, veterinary clinic have more cost naturally most cost than website so to avoid, to avoid a tariff war, we. We manage the, the, the, the different channel. Are the indicators in the multi-detector catalitter going to last for the life of the catheter?
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. We test, we have tested the our detectors. At room temperature, open air, so.
Much harder work than a catheter inside a catheter and after one entire year it works. All way It was, it is still work. So one month is very, it's absolutely no problem.
I cannot see the, the last one. I must move. Can you put the question?
Mm. Ah, better. OK.
Joan, Joan, urine dipstick colour changed over time and has to be read right away. If the urine has been in the litter all day, while we are at work all day, with the colour change over time. No.
Yes, yes, yes and no, partially. The pH albumin and bilirubin indication. We'll come back to.
From, from green to yellow, it lasts some hours but maybe one entire day. It could come back and especially by because the cats can move the litter, you know, . It lasts some hour, but we did it because we wanted the the people will be able to, to, to serve of the the the the litter several days, you know, not only one shot, but the, the whole month long for the granule, no, the granule are very, very stable if you want to.
Use it, several days. It's very easy. By example, suppose you, the cats have, have, have made a, a purple, change on certain granules.
You put out with a, with a, with a commodiki IPD. You put out, you take the granule with a small tool tweezers, is that what you're talking about. You put the granule with the tweezers and out and the, the, the rest of the granule are effective to work, you know, as long as there are granules inside neutral granules, you know, not, not touched by the urine, they work.
Nice. I see that I have replied . Ah, OK.
No, no, maybe there is one more. OK. Thank you so much, Francois.
I think that's all for now, so thank you. Just, I'll just have, if it, if it's OK, just to have like a quick word on UK availability and samples and everything. So regarding sample, there's absolutely no problem.
Just, please get in touch with me, and I could send that out to you ASAP. There's absolutely no problem. We'll get that organised.
I think my email address was popped in the chat, so if you need to, if you, if you'd like to get in touch, and as per UK availability, so that will, at the moment, obviously we're very new in the UK market was just starting, so, it will. All orders will come through me at the moment, but we're already in touch with with other vets, clinics, with wholesalers and so on, so, it's, it's just a matter of time until the products will be available more widely in the UK but at the moment, I will, it will just go through me and I'll deal with it, so. So please again, if you have any question or any, anything you want to ask about, don't hesitate to come to, you know, get in touch with me.
Thank you so much. That's brilliant. It's, it's, it's, it's me now.
I, I, I thank you for the, for this presentation. I was quite a bit afraid about speaking between in front of, of, of English people because, you know, as I'm French, I have a good English for French people but really for native one, it's not the same. So I'm happy with with some reaction of the people.
Telling it was interesting. Thank you for, every, everybody. Thank you, Mao and thank you Katrin and Rebecca and and Coral.
Oh, thank you so much, Francois. Well, you've had some lovely comments in the chat box. I don't know if you've seen.
Lorna said, thank you, Francois, sounds like a fantastic product, and I'll definitely be using it in practise. And Joanne has said, thank you for the really interesting and informative presentation. And you've had some thank yous in French as well.
Oh yeah, absolutely, that's lovely. So yeah, as my nan said, her email address is in the chat box, so please do feel free to reach out to her if you'd like any more information on anything that you've heard today. Rebecca has also put in the chat box, the YouTube video link.
So if anybody wanted to rewatch that, you know, you can do so just by using that. Link. But yeah, I think all that's left for me to say is just thank you so much, Franco.
It was such a great presentation, and thanks very much for taking the time to answer our audience's questions live as well. It's been a pleasure to hear about, about this topic. And yeah, a big thank you to Mavik Labratoire for supporting this session and for, making it readily available for everybody at lunchtime today.
So just a quick reminder, the session has been recorded and The recording and the certificate will be available on the webinar vets platform within the next day or two. And we're also gonna have French subtitles on the recording as well, which is great news. So please do feel free, you know, to go back and watch anything again, or to share it with your colleagues in practise.
And yeah, big thank you to everybody for joining us live. Thank you for the excellent questions, and we hope to see you on another webinar very soon. Thanks very much, Francois.
Thanks, Moon. Thank you so much. Take care.
