Well, let me extend a very warm welcome to everyone here at the Peel Hunt Auditorium. It is fantastic to see that the whole auditorium is filled up, and there is so much interest in our PRRS-resistant pig. My name is Jorgen Kokke. I am the group CEO of Genus plc, and I'm the newest member of the team, having joined Genus in May, and I've taken over from Steven just in July, having spent 30 years in the food and ag world, and a majority of that time in significant leadership positions around the world. And in fact, the topic for today, the PRRS-resistant pig, is one of the key factors that attracted me to join this great company, Genus.
It has taken us nearly a decade to get to this point, and that is why I am so excited to discuss our plans to commercialize our PRRS-resistant pig. This is really a truly breakthrough innovation. We like to keep names simple, and from here on forward, we will refer to PRP for the PRRS-resistant pig. First, some housekeeping issues, and this is our disclaimer, so let's move on. Before we dive into the detail, I wanted to go through our key messages for today. Firstly, I wanna be clear that we're focused on delivering compelling returns on the investments that we've made and to our shareholders, and that underpins everything that we do. We want to also leave you with an understanding that PRP is a pioneering use of gene-editing technology. It will transform animal welfare and reduce the environmental impact of rearing pigs.
We're very excited to be bringing this breakthrough technology to the market. Today's session should also highlight that PIC has an excellent and unique go-to-market platform to be delivering PRP. We have the conventional genetics, the supply chain, and very, very importantly, the customer relationship and the customer intimacy to bring this technology to the market successfully. Thirdly, we are making really good progress in terms of regulatory approvals. The positive Colombia determination we received a few weeks ago is our first step. There will be more to come, and we are continuing to make progress submitting documentation and engaging with various regulatory bodies. Fourthly, you will see that we have well-developed plans, or plans around customer engagement, genetic dissemination, and market acceptance, which is very, very critical. And finally, we will provide you with some color around our expectations for PRP's financial performance: volumes, prices, and so forth.
In terms of our agenda for today, let me introduce you to our speakers. I will be giving you an overview of our strategic priorities and where my focus lies. I will be followed by Dr. Matt Culbertson, the Chief Operating Officer of PIC. Matt will be giving you an overview of the PIC business and an introduction to the PRRS-resistant pig. We will then have Dr. Elena Rice, our Chief Scientific Officer, walking you through the science behind our PRRS gene edit, as well as our regulatory progress. Next will be Todd Wilken, our Director for PIC North America. Todd will give you a sense of the prevalence, impact, and the cost of PRRS to our U.S. customers. Nick McCulley is PIC's Global Supply Chain Director.
Nick will take you through our supply chain investments specific to PRRS and our plans for disseminating the gene edit into our customers' system. Nick will be followed by Banks Baker, who is PIC's global sustainability director. Banks is leading our work on market acceptance throughout the supply chain and will detail the initiatives and the progress we're making on this very critical topic. Banks' segment has been recorded, as he received a new addition to his family, a baby boy, just on Tuesday, and so he's still in the United States, of course. Then Matt Biancheri is PIC's finance director. Matt will take you through PRP's financial considerations, which I'm sure you will find quite interesting.
And finally, Alison Henriksen, our Group CFO, will reiterate our commitment to delivering compelling returns on our investments and the fact that PRP is just one of many avenue to drive Genus's ROIC higher. I would also flag that we have some members of our board in the audience. Many of you will know our Chairman, Iain Ferguson, as well as Lesley Knox, our Senior Independent Director. Where's Lesley? Don't see her now. There she is, all the way in the back. Hi, Lesley. But it is my pleasure to also introduce you to Professor Jason Chin, who is a member of our board, and he joined our board in 2021, and Jason chairs our scientific advisory board committee.
Among other roles, Jason is the head of the Centre for Chemical and Synthetic Biology at Cambridge and a non-executive director for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology. Over the next few hours, we'll be going through the details of our PRRS program. After that, we'll have an informal networking lunch, and it would be great to chat to those of you that have time to stay a little longer. Let me now begin proceedings by talking about our strategic priorities. I'd like to dwell for a moment on our vision: pioneering animal genetic improvement to help nourish the world. It is ambitious, it is unique, and it offers tremendous room for growth. We take it very, very seriously, and our colleagues around the world are working relentlessly to bring our vision to life.... How do we do this?
Our strategy is to harness leading technologies, deliver them to our customers in the most effective way possible, and share in the value delivered. We operate in three proteins: pork, dairy, and beef. We have a strong shared R&D platform. After Sexcel and IntelliGen, which was a major innovation, it is very exciting to see that our R&D pipeline is now delivering the PRP, another transformational innovation, leveraging the investments and the know-how that we've built up in gene editing technology. Having come in as the new CEO, I want to reiterate my commitment to this strategy and to this business model. Why is that? Our journey so far tells me that our strategy is working.
As you can see, in the chart on the left there, we've been able to deliver strong profit growth over the last decade, but at the same time, we've significantly increased our investments for the future. The chart in the middle shows our R&D spend. Last year, we invested significantly more money in gene editing as we are nearing PRP commercialization. The chart on the right reflects the investments we've made in our facilities, production capacity, IT systems, and our proprietary genetics. In PIC, we built our Atlas farm, our new elite farm. In ABS, we've built state-of-the-art housing at our facilities in Wisconsin, and we continue to invest in new intelligent machines to meet the demand for sexed semen. Both divisions now have supply chain infrastructure in place to underpin many years of growth to come.
The point we would make is that we have continued to deliver our medium-term target of a 10%, five-year CAGR and adjusted OP, excluding gene editing, while at the same time, increasing our investments. And we're now approaching a point where our PRP investment should begin to bear fruit over the next number of years. Turning then to our strategic priority. As I mentioned during our results presentation in September, these are the successful commercialization of our PRP, continued growth with our core PIC franchise, as well as decreasing the volatility of the growth in our PIC China, deliver greater value from our bovine segment, ABS, and continue our innovation journey, delivering returns on our R&D investments. I see great potential in each of these areas, and today's aim is to take you through the PRP opportunity, of course, in detail.
Let me now turn to PRP in particular. We are hugely excited about this technology. We can improve animal welfare by introducing disease resistance and decreasing the need for antibiotics. We can also have a significantly positive impact on other areas of sustainability, namely reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing feed and water intake, and reducing land usage. There's a benefit to our customers' employees, too. As Todd Wilken will detail later on, these men and women go to work every day to raise happy and healthy animals. There's a genuine distress when animals are sick and die from PRRS. And lastly, there is the benefit to our customers themselves. Their systems will be more robust, productivity will rise as a result of lower input needs, such as antibiotics and feed. Net-net, it will deliver savings to our customers.
So all in all, we think PRP is a transformational product for the porcine industry. Let me lastly turn to where we are at a high level. Many of you will have heard us talk about technical risk, regulatory risk, and market acceptance. On the technical side, Elena will show you why we're very confident that our PRPs are resistant to PRRS, and their performance and meat are equivalent to the meat from conventional animals. On the regulatory side, we are on track. As I said previously, the positive Colombia determination is a good first step for us. We have submitted our dossiers to the U.S. FDA and await their response in the first half of 2024. Further progress is being made in other countries as we speak.
Lastly, on market acceptance, we have great messages on the shared benefits we can bring to the entire pork value chain. We're getting our message out there, both directly through our own engagement with producers, packers, retailers, and also indirectly through our work with numerous industry partners, such as the U.S. National Pork Board and the Coalition for Responsible Gene Editing in Agriculture. With that, let me turn to my colleague, Dr. Matt Culbertson, PIC's COO, who will give you an overview of PIC and an introduction to the PRP program. Matt?
Thank you, Jorgen, and good morning, everyone. I am Matt Culbertson, and since July first, I've had the privilege to serve as the Chief Operating Officer for PIC. Since this is the first time I've met the majority of you, a bit of background about myself. I was born and raised on a swine farm in the Midwest portion of the United States and have honestly only worked with pigs my entire life. After completing a PhD in swine genetics, I worked on a fast-growing company in the upper Midwest, and then spent approximately 10 years working for Smithfield Foods, who at the time, was the largest pork producer and pork processor in the world.... There I had the opportunity to learn and to lead various parts of their business operations, including genetics, nutrition, veterinary medicine, and applied research.
I've been at PIC now for approximately 12 years, and have been fortunate enough to spend time leading our sales teams, working with some of our larger global key accounts, as well as our product development and technical service functions around the globe. In that role, I've had the opportunity to help guide our tremendous team on the PRP project from an early idea and positive result to the exciting stage that we're at today. We are fortunate to be in our 61st year of delivering improved genetic potential and predictability of success to our customers all around the globe.
Even though the technologies and tools that we use to create improvement today continue to evolve, as well as in many cases, the size, scope, and level of integration of our global customers' operations, we believe that we still look at the core components of our business model in much the same way as the original founders likely did back in 1962. The flywheel on the left-hand portion of this slide represents those core components of our business model. The first, robust genetic improvement, speaks to our never-ending promise of using the best available genetics and the best available science to continually improve our genetic potential for traits and characteristics that help make our customers the most successful pork producers in the world.
I believe the second, realized product differentiation, highlights the combined impact that that genetic potential and our global teams, from technical service to health assurance, from supply chain to account management, have on making sure that that promise of potential improvement over generations and generations of selection is ultimately realized by visible changes in our customers' bottom line. The third component, predictable customer experience, highlights our focus on doing the right thing at the right time in the right way, and using all of our combined experiences and skills from around the globe to actively listen to customers and respond quickly to their needs. And finally, for us, lifetime customer value is built upon the long-term relationships that we are fortunate to have with many key customers around the globe.
As we deliver genetic improvement and focus on customer success, I believe it should allow us to grow our own business and generate positive financial returns that then we can reinvest in the next generation of innovation and business advancements that will allow that flywheel to turn faster and faster, and for us to deliver ever-increasing value to our customers. We believe that this focus on the value proposition represented by the PIC flywheel is a key part of our continued growth and a foundational component to the many long-term relationships we have around the globe. I believe that the PRP product is the next step in this transition, a true breakthrough product that builds on this continuous track record of innovation and execution, and it's focused on delivering predictable value and success to our customers.
Along our journey of translating that flywheel into core focus areas for the development and delivery of our ever-improving version of the world's best pig, we start by focusing on four core areas for product improvement. The first is sow herd productivity, or simply the ability of the mother animals to efficiently produce a large number of thrifty, vigorous, high-quality piglets to weaning. The second, fast and efficient growth, highlights the continual focus on improving animals for their efficiency and growth post-weaning. The third, robustness, highlights our many ongoing efforts to maximize the health and longevity of animals throughout the entire life cycle of the production process, in the sow herd and through the growing pig phase. And finally, our efforts on maximizing total carcass value, or the realized value of pork products at the time that the pig is processed.
This effort not only includes maximizing the saleable lean yield of the pig, but also the quality of the products that are produced, be it processed products that are produced in various geographies around the globe, or the eating satisfaction of consumers with a fresh pork dish they might buy at a restaurant or buy at a retail grocery store and take home and prepare for themselves and their family. When the original founders of PIC, who were all British pig farmers, were sitting in the White Hart Pub in Nettlebed, I am sure that they were primarily thinking about these four key objectives as the economic drivers of the success of their farming operation. However, as you'll hear from Banks Baker later today, I believe that these focus areas are inherently linked to significant improvements and shared benefits across the entire pork chain.
In particular, you'll hear why we believe that PRP generates significant improvement in the pork chain towards decreased potential need for antibiotics, enhanced animal welfare, and improved sustainability, all key factors driving decision to making in today and tomorrow's consumers... Originally characterized in the late 1980s, the PRRS virus quickly spread around the globe, and unfortunately today is widespread and endemic in most significant pork-producing areas, as shown by the countries in red on this chart. In fact, Brazil is really the only significant pork production area that has been able to remain negative to PRRS. Our previous COO, Bill Christianson, did his PhD project on PRRS in the early 1990s. In fact, he even started it at a time where the PRRS virus was still known as mystery swine disease.
I'm guessing that Bill, and many other industry leaders at the time, would have hoped that 30-odd years later, we would have developed robustly effective vaccines or prevention, control, and management strategies that would minimize the impact of PRRS. Unfortunately, up until this point, that has simply not been the case. We still lack robustly effective vaccines, and control and prevention has proven costly and difficult to implement. In fact, recent industry estimates suggest an annual cost of over $2 billion across just North America and Europe due to the impact of PRRS. In the most recent 6 months, post-COVID travel restrictions, I've spent several weeks traveling around China on a couple of different visits and re-engaging with many friends, industry leaders, and key customers.
Many of you have likely heard about ASF, or African Swine Fever, and over the last several years, it has expanded across China and caused significant volatility and disruption to that industry. Even with as big of an issue as ASF is in that region, I still have had many tell me on my most recent visits that PRRS, and the unpredictability associated with it, was still their most significant impact. Therefore, with over half of the world's production in the Asia region today, I think it's fair to assume that that $2 billion estimate previously mentioned is conservative as we look across the globe. Many of our core markets around the globe, including our two largest core targets for this initial product launch, China and the United States, continue to struggle with effective and consistent PRRS prevention, and control, and management.
Today, we're gonna focus our presentation on the development path to potential commercialization of PRP in the United States. As you'll hear from Todd, the U.S. is obviously a core and established market for us. In many ways, this is our foundation geography, not only from a customer perspective, but also with respect to the base of our global genetic production and technical foundation. Although we won't focus on China today, I want to reinforce that we're fully committed to the continued progress in that country. It is, without question, the largest global market opportunity and a key part of our go-global go-forward plan. We remain excited about the relationship with BCA that you've previously heard about, and we believe that that relationship only accelerates our progress in successfully launching the product in that geography.
Today, the regulatory process in China is becoming increasingly granular and predictable, and we expect approval in 2026. We have a great team and a great business. Hopefully, at the end of the day today, you can see that the opportunity to maximize the success and the impact of the PRP product is due to a combination of the great innovation that the PRP product is itself, combined with the highly unique and value-added PIC business. I believe that there are multiple factors that not only have positively impacted PIC's success to date, but also deliver this increased chance of success and impact of the PRP product. This clearly starts with the best team in the industry. I am continually amazed and thankful for the skill and dedication that our team around the globe shows on a daily basis. This is the foundation of our success.
The PRP trait itself is only maximized if it is incorporated into the genetics that offer excellent performance for all of the other traits and characteristics that deliver maximum value to our customers. We have worked hard to incorporate the PRP trait into our industry-leading genetics, and expect this not only to impact the value of PRP itself, but also to unlock an even more consistent and visible delivery of our existing genetic potential for all of those other traits and characteristics, as they'll be expressed in more predictable, healthier, and higher-performing production flows of the future. We're fortunate to have many long-term relationships across our industry in North America and around the globe, including working with over 250 of the top global producers for greater than five years.
We greatly value these relationships, and as Matt Biancheri will share later in the day, believe that in combination with our existing royalty business model, it positions us well for proactive conversations and successful incorporation of new technologies, PRP or others that may come along in the future. Over time, we have made investments and built an industry-leading global supply chain.... Although today the PRP animals are really only on two dedicated farms in the U.S., Nick McCulley will share with you how we can quickly and efficiently leverage our existing supply chain footprint to scale and meet customer demands in any market around the globe.
Finally, as industry leaders focused on innovation and customer success across the pork chain for over 60 years, we believe it positions us well, not only to navigate the dynamics and complexities of the global regulatory landscape that Elena will share in the next section, but also, as Banks will point out, lead the industry in new and evolving conversations that highlight the significant shared benefits this technology will have throughout the entire pork chain, from farmer to consumer, on key topics such as sustainability, animal well-being, and antibiotic use. I'm excited about the information that we have to share with you today, and would like to introduce our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Elena Rice, to give you some additional updates on the technical background and regulatory path of the PRP product.
Thank you, Matt. Hello, everyone. I'm Elena Rice, Chief Scientific Officer for Genus. I joined Genus in the summer of 2019. Before Genus, I worked for most of my career at Monsanto Bayer in various leadership roles, developing and commercializing a variety of innovative products. Most of those products are on the market today, and some of them ready to be introduced to customers. Of course, the opportunity to bring PRP to the market was an exciting one for me because of all very clear benefits that PRP can unlock for pigs' welfare and productivity. Today, I am very pleased to provide an update and on the science of PRP and our progress.
The story of PRP, when you look at that, may seem to be long, but when I reflect on scientific developments that allowed us to reach this point, it feels very different to me. Porcine CD163 protein was identified as an entrance point for the virus by academic researchers, and it took actually many years. Genus PIC worked alongside those researchers, sponsoring their work and being patient about sometimes discouraging results. Finally, between 2010 and 2017, the entry point for the PRRS virus was identified, and a specific protein region, Domain Five, was called out. Approximately at the same time, CRISPR-Cas9 technology came to the world's attention. The gene editing approach now offered an opportunity to develop PRRS-resistant pigs.
However, knowing the protein didn't mean we knew how to efficiently modify it and incorporate it into our elite genetic program. A lot needed to be learned, and there were no textbooks written that taught us all the steps. Nobody did it actually before us at this scale. As you can imagine, such work always comes with trials and errors, but we deliver it. What you see on this slide is a diagram of porcine CD163 protein. Domain Five was identified as a domain responsible for binding the virus and playing a key role in viral replication in pigs. We used CRISPR-Cas9 technology to remove portion of the DNA that encodes Domain Five. How it works? Cas9 protein complex with two synthetic guide RNA is delivered into a cell, acting as molecular scissors and cutting DNA into two designated locations, removing Domain Five.
After the removal of Domain Five, the virus cannot enter and replicate in pig's body. It is important to point out that no foreign DNA being inserted during gene editing process. The rest of the protein continues to carry on its intended function, minus binding the PRRS virus. During the last several years, we have also built strong in-house capabilities to enable the PRRS-resistant program, choosing the right molecular tools to make the edit, molecularly select the desired edits and deselect off targets, test for efficacy in cell lines, and introduce those edits into the animals. Going forward, it will allow us to more rapidly and efficiently evaluate and test targets for other critical diseases. I want to take a few minutes to describe how we develop PRP for all necessary testing. In first generation, we usually get mixture of edits.
When we make an edit, not all of them are exactly the same as we expect. So we have to choose the one that is desirable and designed. So we're choosing that edit from these E0 pigs. We select them and deselect animals that don't have desirable edit. The selected E0 animals are bred with non-edited pigs, and we eliminate all off-target edit during this process. At this step, we select E1 animals that carry one copy of the edited gene and one copy of non-edited gene. Those are heterozygous for edit pigs. However, for complete PRRS resistance, we need two copies of the edited gene in the same animal. To achieve this, we breed the E1 animals, where mom and dad each provide one copy of the edited gene, and selected E2 pigs now carry two copies. We call them homozygous for edited gene animals.
Now we can start testing those animals. Clearly, that's a relatively lengthy process, but it is a necessary one because it gives us confidence in the outcomes we are looking for. So a couple of years ago, I shared with you disease challenge results that we were very excited to, and we would-- we got them with our research animals. But in the last two years, we concluded several live animal disease challenges with commercial animals, and we confirmed that edited animals were 100% resistant to the tested PRRS virus strains. In all our studies, we tested two groups of animals, homozygous for edited animals and non-edited animals, and we tested them with two main types of virus, type one and type two. For the type two virus, we tested five key isolates representing the most pervasive lineages in the U.S. in the last 20 years.
The strains that we tested ranged from the ones identified in the early 1990s and those that were developed, mutated in the last 2, 3 years. The strains that we tested represent most of the lineages as and sublineages that are dominant today in the field. In each study, we measured level of viral amplification in blood samples and also development of antibodies to PRRS virus, which is another way to confirm that animal had a virus in their body. The green color in the table shows that the edited animals had no signs of viral replication, and the red color for non-edited animals shows that they had detectable level of viral replication in their blood and also developed antibodies for PRRS virus.
So this work also confirmed that despite the different appearance times, all isolates used had the same entry point to the pig body, Domain Five of CD163 protein. We are confident today that PRP is resistant to the virus. There are needed to be conducted a set of evaluation to ensure that the edit does not adversely affect pigs, and it's very important to us to prove it. We compared edited animals to non-edited ones to evaluate if there are any differences at all in how they develop, grow, and reproduce. We assessed both male and female animals. We did statistical analysis on over 20 variables, from birth to finishing and reproduction. Here you can see several key traits. We haven't detected any differences in the measured phenotypes, and we confirm that the edit confers, confers only resistance to the virus.
Another very important evaluation that we conducted is a comparison of meat quality and composition between edited and non-edited pigs. We collected data for statistical analysis on 97 variables. So in the table on this slide, you can see critical variables necessary for the quality and composition of pork. Not only were all data well within normal ranges for pork, but there were no differences in any variable between edited and non-edited pigs. So the meat quality and composition of edited pigs is exactly the same as the meat of non-edited pigs. So you may ask me, now, when we are confident in PRP, how we will protect it? Well, over the years, we actually developed and built a robust intellectual property portfolio around CD163 edits. We have issued patents in 37 countries, and we still have 43 patents in the application stage globally.
Overall, Genus plc secured the global exclusive right to the broad CD163 edits, which means anybody who wants to work on CD163 gene editing will probably need a license from us. In the last two years, we also filed patent, our own patent applications that cover commercial edits and methods, and we also secured a license from Roslin Institute for domain five removal. The last two years were very busy for us. We were working on the technical submissions for approval by the FDA. Again, there were no clear guidelines for this new technology, unlike the guidelines we know for GMOs. We worked very closely with FDA to develop the most rational and practical approach, and we, we've made significant progress in a relatively short time.
At this point, we submitted all major technical pieces, and many of them have been accepted by the FDA. So acceptance means we answered all the questions and provided all the necessary information. There is still some work to do, but we are confident that we can address all remaining questions, and we do expect to receive approval in the first half of 2024. As we continue to work with the FDA, we also moved forward with the global regulatory submissions. There are differences in how different countries view the gene editing technology. Unlike GMOs, gene editing does not introduce foreign DNA. So therefore, in some countries, the main question that needs to be answered is if a gene edited product requires a different regulatory treatment than conventional pork and pigs.
So for the determination process, we still have to provide extensive molecular characterization, information, and also answer all associated questions. This process, however, tends to be quicker than the full approval process. At this point, we made submissions in Colombia and Brazil, both countries using the determination process, and we received favorable determination from Colombia, which means that PRP is not a GMO and will be treated the same way as conventional pigs. A complete approval process, like the one required for the FDA, takes longer, and as we have to provide the studies that address gene at efficacy, food and feed safety, and complete phenotypical evaluation. For countries like Canada and China, we actually will use data already produced for FDA approval.
Our plan is to make submissions to Canada and Japan in the next few months, and then continue with Mexico and China. So thank you, and I will hand it over to Todd.
Thank you, Elena. Thank you, Elena, and good morning. My name is Todd Wilken, and I'm the director for PIC North America. I've been with the PIC business 28 years, and actually, in the effort of dating myself, I go back to 1987 with my first introduction to PIC, and as Anand reminded me last night at dinner, that was before he was born. So, what I want to talk to you today about is PRRS in the U.S. Let's talk first about prevalence. Matt mentioned earlier that PRRS has been in the United States for 30 years. Nearly all major systems would have suffered a break in the last 3 years. So PRRS is very prevalent. I want to direct your attention to the slide on the right side of the slide to the table.
We see that this is data provided by the University of Minnesota. The data is derived from 44 production systems. Production systems would be multiple farms managed under one system. It would represent literally hundreds of farms, and the data would represent nearly everyone in the Top 20 by size, and it would represent nearly 60% of all the sows in the United States. The best way to interpret this slide is to look at it in 3 categories: the pink and red as acute. In the acute phase, we have active virus circulation, and all of the acute symptoms are being experienced by the sows, and they are transferring that to their piglets, so everyone is very sick. In the chronic phase, the sows are positive for the PRRS virus.
They continue to transfer that PRRS virus downstream to their offspring, but they're stable, so they're not showing as many acute signals. In the dynamic phase, what we see is those herds may have been in the acute and chronic phase, but due to a cleanup of disease or a new repopulation or a new stocking, those sows represent herds that do not have the PRRS virus present today. So to summarize, PRRS has become increasingly endemic and unseasonal, meaning that PRRS, that more farms are positive and the farms are remaining positive longer than they have in the past. At any given time, 60% of the sow herds are PRRS positive, and out of the 44 systems that are represented here, six have never reported a PRRS break in the last five years. I would tell you that those six have probably taken...
Number one, are very small, but have probably taken extreme measures to ensure that doesn't happen. An example of that would be our Apex Elite farm, where we are doing extreme measures on a daily basis to protect that farm from exposure to the virus. Let's talk now about cost. First of all, I'd like to talk about the cost to the pig itself or welfare-related costs, and we'll direct you to the blue boxes. I've broken this into two groupings, right? The impact on growing pigs and the impact on the breeding herd. When we think about what does a PRRS infection mean to a growing pig, in the acute phase, we see fever, we see respiratory challenge, impeded growth, poor feed conversion rate, and, and the, increased post-weaning mortality.
To the sow herd, again, in the acute phase, we see fever, we see decreased conception rate, we see increases in sow mortality, we see an increase in premature birthing and an increase in post-weaning mortality. If we move then to think about what cost, what is the real financial cost to the industry? The most current estimate that's been made was issued by Iowa State University in 2010, where they estimated a total of $664 million a year associated with PRRS in the U.S. swine industry. Based on pig numbers at that time, that would equate to about $6 per pig. Since that time, we've certainly produced more pigs per year, but we've also seen an almost doubling in the cost of production. So it's safe to assume that the cost per pig has not gotten lower over that period of time.
I also want to point out that PRRS is prevalent in the finishing flow, and more than 50% of the cost associated with PRRS is actually attributed to growing and finishing pigs. What is the toll on people? And Jorgen spoke to this earlier. So when we have a PRRS break on a farm, certainly there's a toll on the ownership, right? There's the fear of financial loss and the concern about how do we clean this up, but there's also a huge toll on the staff. The staff goes to work every day thinking that they're going to produce healthy and robust pigs, and in a disease challenge, it's just not possible.
Many times they go through the process of cleaning the herd up, only to find out that the herd breaks back again within a few days, weeks, months of going through all of that work. It can be hugely demoralizing. Lastly, PRRS has a real effect on the immune system of the pig, and so what we see are co-infections, bacterial co-infections, wherein we see an increase in the use of antibiotics to address those infections. I'd like to talk now about PIC's presence in the U.S. market. What you see on the left side of the slide is the Top 20 North American systems by sow-based size. They range in size from Smithfield at 900,000 sows to Reicks View at 62,000 sows. So there's a wide range in size and scale amongst the Top 20 producers, but all are significant.
PIC today supplies 19 of the Top 20 North American producers. Why don't we supply Pillen Family Farms? They have their own genetics program and are competitors to PIC, so it's not easy for us to sell them genetics today. But if we were to look at the Top 50, 45 have been continuous customers of PIC for at least the last 10 years, and I can tell you that some of those have been customers for over 40 years. The Top 20 producers represent 51% of the North American market, and 75% of those Top 20 producers are vertically integrated, meaning that they own something beyond production. They have ownership in processing. They have ownership, in some cases, in the downstream brand value of the products. Why is this important?
It's important because as producers integrate through the chain, the impact of PRRS is multiplied across many other factors that they wouldn't have simply as a producer, okay? And then lastly, while we have a strong position in the Top 20, we certainly don't have a 100% wallet share with everyone there. And so we see an opportunity through the PRP program, where biologically, it requires both sire and dam to produce a PRRS-resistant pig to help us gain share within the Top 20. So how do we implement our business model with customers in North America? Matt did a great job of describing our business model, and I would tell you that it's well understood and well accepted by the market. We take that business model, and we implement it in what we refer to as a royalty model.
PIC creates genetic improvement in our nucleus herds. We pass that genetic improvement into a multiplication tier that's made up of contract multipliers that contract with PIC, and we sell those, those remaining gilts to the market. Internal multipliers. Many of our customers have their own GPs and GGPs, grandparents and great-grandparents, and produce their own parent stock for commercial herds under contract. And then lastly, distribution partners. We see this in the form of user groups for gilt multiplication and gene transfer centers for semen. We pass the genetics through the chain at cost of goods, and then PIC collects a royalty at the customer commercial level, either on the sow on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis, or on the pigs, either weaned pigs or slaughter pigs produced by that sow.
The outcome of that is that we collect the royalty in multiple sources that help us stabilize revenue across the various peaks and valleys of the supply and demand curve, and it stabilizes that revenue flow across time... So why am I comfortable and confident that we will deliver PRP in the U.S.? Number one, PIC has a strong track record of delivering value and innovation to the market. We're a trusted supplier, and we have delivered in the areas of genetic improvement and health over many, many years. Secondly, the PRP has a unique position that it addresses challenges and creates opportunities simultaneously up and down the chain, and that positions that trait very well. Thirdly, PIC is working extremely hard today to build trust through transparency to the market.
We've taken a very transparent approach, hoping that everyone can understand this technology and the implications of the technology and the value of the technology up and down the chain. And lastly, as Matt Biancheri is going to describe for you in detail, I believe that we're taking a value-based dissemination strategy designed to encourage participation and discourage negative positioning in the market. So the final question is: What do customers think of the technology today? So Dr. Clayton Johnson of the Carthage System, which was number six on that pie chart, they manage approximately 116,000 sows in a system.
He provided me with this quote: "We're truly excited about the potential of PRRS resistance, and as a result, we are encouraging our customers to start considering strategies for implementation when the technology becomes available and accepted." I think that would summarize really where our customers are at. They're excited about the technology, they're thinking through implementation, and they're waiting on PIC to deliver FDA approval and acceptance. With that, I think we're ready to go to our coffee break. So thank you very much for your time, and I really appreciate it.
All right. Welcome back. Good morning. I'm Nick McCulley, the Global Supply Chain Director here at PIC. I've been with the business for 11 years and was a customer of PIC prior to that, and have been passionate about the swine industry since I was a kid. Today, I'm excited to share with you some of the details about the PRRS-resistant pig, which I'll refer to as the PRP, the balance of the talk with you today. I'll walk through the dissemination plan for the PRP and provide each of you with a better perspective of our thoughts and plans on this front. To get started, I think it's important to look at the global pork industry to understand the addressable market for the PRP.
When we start with where pigs are produced, and going back to the slide that Matt shared earlier, the Americas, Europe, and Asia are clearly the key production areas for pork globally. Next, when we look at pork trade, specifically those countries that produce more pork than they consume, and the associated customers of those products, we see that all arrows point to Asia and the Pacific Rim. If we take a look at the U.S. and the representative red lines, we see that Mexico, Canada, Japan are key destinations of U.S. pork products. After Europe and the U.S., Brazil is the third largest exporter of pork products today.
As Matt shared previously, PRRS does not exist in Brazil today, but they're very relevant from a pork trade perspective and also a key place that we today have our elite pure lines and would be a key place for us to someday have our PRP lines as well. If we take all of this, coupled with the regulatory details, specifically where the frameworks are in place for the PRP, as shared by Elena, one can see a path forward, and our focus for the PRP goes to the Americas and Asia. In those significant pork-producing countries, we not only are focused on getting regulatory approval in the country of origin, but also in the key importing countries from each of those geographies as well. An example of this would be getting FDA approval in the U.S.A, along with the key export markets that the U.S. serves.
Countries like Colombia, China, and Japan that do not export significant quantities of pork may provide us a very unique opportunity to commercialize more quickly following regulatory approval and is something we will actively explore once the regulatory hurdles are cleared. All of this considered, we are committed to deploying the PRP technology very transparently and responsibly. Furthermore, we are targeting widespread adoption of the technology while minimizing any, global pork trade disruptions and maximizing the benefits across the entire pork chain. The PIC team is ready to supply the PRP at the onset of commercialization. Before we get into the PRP specifics, the investments we've made in the supply chain over the last several years, as Jorgen shared earlier, along with the depth and breadth of our supply chain, are genuine strengths of our business and will be critical components for a successful PRP launch.
If you look at the chart on the left, you can see the number of pureline maternal and terminal sows in multiplication, along with the number of boar studs that are in each region where we operate today. In this existing infrastructure that's in place, today, is what will allow us to deliver this technology globally. We plan to take our existing global supply chain and transition some of the conventional genetic farms, both multiplication and boar studs, to PRP farms as each market and the associated customer demand requires. As you can see, and as mentioned earlier, we already have two owned farms in North America that are populated with our PRP genetics.
I would also flag on this chart that the majority of our supply chain is leveraged by utilizing third parties, either in a contractual relationship or, in a scenario where they're a customer and end up having their, that portion of the supply chain in their system. Moving forward, each country is unique and will be approached individually to maximize the value proposition associated with the PRP. Next, we plan to maintain parallel supply chains in with each of our purelines, meaning both the PRP and conventional genetic supply chains will be present in each of the relevant markets, where our customers will have access and be able to purchase a product mix of their choosing.
We also have contingency in place with the PRRS-resistant purelines, with the two separate nucleus farms in the U.S. to protect both our historical investment, along with our go-forward plans. Lastly, from a global perspective, we plan to utilize an export strategy to provide global delivery of the PRP. We will transition the country and regional supply chains as PRP commercialization and customer demand requires. This has been the primary way we have disseminated genetic improvement historically and will be the way forward with the PRP. Next, let's revisit the pork production pyramid. On the right-hand side, you'll see that genetic improvement is made at the top of this pyramid, and then we've primarily used boars and semen to move this genetic improvement as quickly and efficiently as possible down the pyramid. Following this, we expand the purelines and make grandparent animals available for both our existing customers and prospects.
We then cross the maternal purelines and multiply commercial females today known as Camborough. From here, we take those Camborough females and cross them with a maternal boar to create market pigs that will be grown, harvested, and go into the food chain. It is worth noting that as we move down the pyramid, we look to outsource to third parties and put those pieces of the supply chain in customer systems. Again, the underlying goal is to manage and control genetic improvement at the top of the pyramid, provide maternal pureline access to customers and prospects, and leverage third-party assets to deliver multiplication, and maximize the speed of genetic dissemination and the associated product differentiation. With the PRP, the same rules will apply.
This is a recessive trait, meaning both mom and dad need to be carriers to confer resistance to their offspring, and this trait will need to be disseminated down this pyramid in the same manner as our genetic improvement does today. Delivering the PRP to our customers will be a multi-year process, and the chart on the bottom left here walks through that breed-up process. As discussed, PRRS-resistant semen and boars will be the primary way this technology is delivered to customers and the various markets around the world. If we walk through the chart, we've utilized an example of a 100,000 sow customer, and on day zero, they have a conventional pig production pyramid that is 100% homozygous, non-edited sows, meaning they are not PRRS resistant.
In the 18-month pyramid, which is the second from the left, you can see that the majority of the sows are still homozygous, non-edited, and there's also a few that are starting to become heterozygous. Move to the end of year 3, and the majority of sows are now heterozygous, and approximately 25% would be homozygous, edited sows that would be PRRS resistant. At the end of year 5, there'd be approximately 70% that would be PRRS resistant, and depending on implementation of the PRP genetic program, 100% PRRS resistance would be conferred sometime in year 6 or a bit beyond. When looking at this chart, there are two separate benefits being conferred to customers. First is protecting the sow herd and the associated implications of a PRRS introduction. Second is protecting the growing pigs from PRRS.
With both of these benefits, value will be conferred as the breed up from zero to 100% PRRS resistance occurs. Customers would still see PRRS breaks during this time as the breed up of PRP occurs, but the number of animals impacted would be in line with the percentage of animals that are PRRS resistant versus not. There will be also a couple of ways customers can accelerate the rate of transitioning to a PRRS-resistant herd. First, would be to increase the annualized sow replacement rate at each level of the pyramid. Today, customers would normally be somewhere around 55%, and they may choose to go to 100%+, assuming both the animals and the needed facilities are available to accelerate this process.
Also, there would be alternative insemination techniques that could be utilized to reduce the number of semen doses required per female per year, as well as reduce the individual semen dose concentrations, and as a result of this, increase the number of sows that an individual gene-edited, PRRS-resistant boar can cover. To wrap up this slide, it's also worth noting that there continues to be a constant integration of elite conventional genes into this gene PRP genetic pyramid. And until the resistant pureline's population size are large enough to keep pace with our conventional genetic pyramid, this will continue to occur. In closing, I appreciate the opportunity that each of you have given to listen to me and the group today, and next, we will listen to Banks Baker provide a PRP market acceptance update.
Banks sends his apologies for not being able to be in person, but as mentioned earlier this week, he became a first-time father. Both his wife and his baby boy are doing well, and we send them all of our best.
Thank you, Nick, and apologies to everybody that I can't be there with you in person. My name is Banks Baker. I am PIC's Global Director of Product Sustainability, and in my role, I'm primarily responsible for gaining and earning market acceptance for our PRRS-resistant pig. I've been with PIC for a little under two years, and I joined PIC after five years with McDonald's Corporation, where I led sustainability for their U.S. business. And so in that role, I was responsible for animal health and welfare, antibiotic commitments, and then also implementing greenhouse gas reduction strategies specific to the protein supply chain.
And I share that with you today because I draw on those experiences to understand the pressures that the food system is facing and then how we can address them. Pressures on animal agriculture are widespread, and there's probably none more prevalent than on environmental concerns, including greenhouse gas emissions, and then also on antibiotic use. The truth is that we are asking a lot of agriculture, especially animal agriculture and the protein industry. The evolving landscape and pressures are comprehensive, with consumers and shareholders, governments, and regulators around the world that are demanding progress. The necessity for companies to address climate action, it's never been stronger, and I'm gonna share with you an interesting statistic. To date, 83% of Fortune Global 500 companies have set climate-related targets.
These are companies across every business sector, not just food and agriculture, and they represent over a third of global market capitalization, worth $38 trillion. And if a company sells animal protein, it's, it's likely one of their highest-emitting and their most difficult and costly categories to achieve emissions reductions in. Now, European and American carbon emissions reporting requirements are coming to life, and there is an impending tax liability that lingers, and these will change the way that we do business. These carbon commitments represent a new, unaccounted-for cost of good, and companies are increasingly searching for credible and scalable, feasible solutions to allow them to make progress. Consumer and corporate pressures around the use of antibiotics have been growing for years. Shareholder proposals around antibiotic use have recently resurfaced, and for good reason.
The World Health Organization estimates that resistance to drugs could cost the global economy $100 trillion by 2050 if no action is taken. The PRRS-resistant pig provides a tremendous opportunity. In the end, technology is necessary to enable the progress that's needed and is being demanded of the food system. Gene editing and PIC's PRRS-resistant pig are an excellent example of technologies that deliver benefits up and down the pork value chain and specifically enable responsible progress. Our PRRS-resistant pig provides the ability to remove one of the world's most devastating diseases that impacts livestock. The impact on animal health and welfare is real, and it's direct. You heard from Todd Wilken earlier on the negative consequences the disease has on pigs, such as high fever, lethargy, respiratory distress, and negative health impacts to newborn piglets.
Our PRRS-resistant pig enables, also enables the reduced need for antibiotic use. I'll highlight specific research results, later in the presentation. Healthy animals are more efficient and convert resources more effectively than sick animals. This is the basic definition of sustainability by creating more with less. Removing PRRS from production systems reduces greenhouse gas emissions, reduces, limits the need for water and feed requirements, and then also limits land use change. I've already highlighted how strong the corporate pressures and need for solutions there are here, and later, I'll highlight programs we are creating to demonstrate how genetic improvement and innovations, like our PRRS-resistant pig, can be used by corporations to demonstrate sustainability progress. But it, it's more than just commitments and pressures. Companies want and need to build supply chain resiliency.
Especially since COVID, supply chain resiliency and reliability have become a strong focus. Removing PRRS supports both. In my previous role, I was tasked with working with protein suppliers, some of the largest meat packers and processing companies in the world, to identify opportunities to reduce the emissions associated with the protein supply chain. We invested in regenerative agriculture, things like management-intensive grazing, utilizing no-till planting techniques, or implementing the use of cover crops. But something that I always thought was missing was the use of elite, high-performing genetics. The truth is, one of the most important things that a farmer can do to improve the sustainability of their operation is to utilize the right animal, one that is healthy, robust, and efficient. But to date, no one has utilized genetics in this way or positioned them as a viable greenhouse gas intervention opportunity.
We're aiming to change that. PIC is completing a comprehensive lifecycle assessment of our genetics and the PRRS-resistant pig to understand what environmental benefits our animals deliver. We're working with one of the world's foremost LCA experts, Dr. Greg Thoma, who's completed a variety of agricultural LCAs for industries around the world. A life cycle assessment, or an LCA, is a standardized modeling process that quantifies the environmental impact of a product. This includes 18 unique environmental impacts, including things like greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and land use change. PIC is completing LCAs in North America, Europe, China, and Japan. We will be following the International Organization for Standardization process for LCA and also submitting for academic review. We are hyper-focused and sensitive to the fact that our environmental data needs to be credible, and it needs to be defensible.
Our first North America and European LCA on the impact of our genetic improvements was submitted to the ISO panel for review and is scheduled to be complete by early 2024. Results are very promising, with pre-submitted reduction estimates in the high single digits in the U.S. and even higher in Europe. We continue to make progress on China and Japan and modeling the impact of PRRS and the ability for us to remove it through our edit. Now, the LCA gives us the ability to credibly and defensively quantify the environmental impact of our genetics. It doesn't yet provide the ability for a corporation to claim those improvements and those reductions.
To do this, PIC has partnered with the National Pork Board, who represents U.S. producers and the U.S. industry, to create a framework that outlines everything that must exist for a corporation to claim greenhouse gas reductions through the use of elite genetics. This includes things like monitoring, reporting, and verification requirements, how do we quantify, and how do we report? It's our goal to create an industry standard for valuing and sharing the environmental benefits of genetics. This framework is currently open for public comment at porkcvalue.com and will be complete early in 2024. We plan to codify the carbon claiming framework through pilot demonstration.
PIC's independent LCA quantification and the framework we created in collaboration with the National Pork Board will be used to, for the first time, demonstrate that genetic improvements and innovations can be used as an intervention to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in a pork supply chain. At this point, a farmer will be cultivating a new commodity, not just the animal and the resulting meat and protein products, but a quantified and compensated carbon value. We are currently designing what a pilot may look like and beginning to recruit major brand partners. Finally, PIC plans to learn from our U.S. pilot and then replicate around the world in other regions where our LCA modeling is occurring. We believe our credible and defensible work can influence how genetics are accounted for in agriculture and used as a sustainability tool.
There probably isn't another company that's delivered as many sustainability benefits to the pork industry than PIC. We believe that the environmental value programs I just shared with you now will directly help address how genetic improvements, including those achieved through gene editing, support corporations in achieving their public and ambitious and costly environmental commitments. The PRRS-resistant pig also reduces the need for antibiotic use. Independent research by Dr. Gustavo Silva and Dr. Isadora Machado of Iowa State University's Veterinary School was recently completed on a study on the impact of PRRS on antibiotic use, and really, the results were astounding. Basically, PRRS infections increase antibiotic use. Although PRRS is a virus, it increases the likelihood of secondary infections. ISU found the PRRS infection increased pig antibiotic treatments 380% and increased injectable antibiotic use by over 200%.
These are astounding numbers and represent real progress. I would like to highlight that we need solutions that reduce the need for antibiotic use, not withholding treatment. Many corporate antibiotic policies measure progress on reduction in use. We know that if an animal is sick, just like us or our children or our pets, if we're sick, antibiotics should not be withheld. It's a welfare issue. The PRRS-resistant pig truly reduces the need for antibiotics by improving animal welfare directly. The value chain needs more solutions like this. Now, these positive benefits are real, and they're exciting, but in the end, the consumer is in charge. They are in the driver's seat. They get to decide if they feel comfortable eating gene-edited animals and proteins.
If we say they are in charge, and they are, we had better understand where they are, what questions and concerns they have, and how they want to be communicated to. So in order for us to understand and be able to do that, we conducted research with the U.S. consumer. We contracted with a group called Circana, who is a leader in consumer research. First, we started with a qualitative research, conducting six focus groups with a diverse group of pork consumers. In these focus groups, we were able to hear directly from the consumer about how they feel about gene editing, what resonates with them, and what would motivate their acceptance of gene-edited pork. We used information from the focus groups to build a quantitative research survey instrument....
We'll be publishing a formal report from the outcome of this research, but wanted to share some of these top-line results with you here today. We asked over 1,000 diverse pork consumers about what would motivate consumers to purchase gene-edited pork. As you can see here, the response was in alignment with the value propositions and research PIC is supporting and building. FDA approval was the strongest motivator. Really, this is seen as table stakes. This is something that must occur. This is a basic requirement. This is something that has to be met. Following that, improved animal welfare, better for the environment, and reduced need for antibiotics were the top consumer motivators. It's worth noting that better for the environment, less energy required, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions are all environmental motivators, and if totaled, are 26%, becoming the top motivator just under FDA approval.
In the end, the consumer research indicated that our market acceptance strategy was on track with consumer expectations on what would motivate them to purchase gene-edited pork. Once FDA approval is secured, PIC is planning to conduct what we are calling demonstrated market acceptance. This is where we will go to public events and serve PRRS-resistant pig pork and gather additional consumer feedback, share the benefits of the product, then also gather additional video evidence of the consumer actually enjoying and consuming pork. We believe that nothing will demonstrate consumer acceptance more than literally showing the consumer eating and enjoying PRRS-resistant pig pork. This is a challenging and an exciting time for animal agriculture, and we are delivering real solutions. But at PIC and Genus' scale and size, we know that we can't speak and share our message with everyone.
We are building relationships, and we're sharing information and educating groups that we know others will turn to for information on gene editing and our PRRS-resistant pig. We are working with groups like the U.S. Meat Export Federation, who have global reach and resources to host webinars, update them on regulatory and market acceptance progress, and make sure they know who to reach out to for additional support and information when needed. We're working with industry organizations like the National Pork Producers Council and the National Pork Board in the U.S. and their equivalent in other countries. I've been directly engaging the pork value chain in over four continents, and I've spoken to thousands of people to share the positive benefits of our PRRS-resistant pig.
As we continue to make regulatory and market acceptance progress, we will increasingly focus our engagement further down the supply chain with packers and processors, with food service and retail companies. Our pilots and our research that we discussed today will help us communicate how our PRRS-resistant pig directly supports the achievement of the public goals and commitments they've made and that we've discussed here today. Our market acceptance strategy, it begins and it ends with creating shared value across the pork chain. No matter where you sit, no matter where you are, we believe we can answer the most important question every segment will ask: Why do I care, and what's in this for me? As you can see here, the benefits are the same, but we know we need to communicate those benefits in a contextually relevant way.
The way we talk about animal welfare with a producer will be different than the way that we talk about it with a consumer, but the benefit is the same. If we can answer these questions and credibly demonstrate value, we will earn and gain market acceptance. Our PRRS-resistant pig provides real and quantifiable benefits across the value chain and society as a whole. Gene editing is revolutionizing human and animal health, and we understand that we are among the first commercially scalable gene-edited solutions for animal health, and this comes with great responsibility. But we're excited to lead, but we also understand that our PRRS-resistant pig is not a singular product. It's the first of many in a suite of technologies that gene editing will enable.
We're also leading the way, establishing credible and defensible standards for genetics to be utilized to deliver progress on corporate sustainability commitments, creating new environmental assets. We are widening our efforts to share and spread our message and our market acceptance strategy. In closing, I'm personally honored to be a part of the team to be introducing this impactful and needed technology to the industry. Gene editing is a step change that allows PIC to continue on our 60-year legacy of delivering genetic improvements to the pork industry. The genetics business is fascinating, and we are literally selling the future. Our PRRS-resistant pig expands and improves on what that future looks like. Thank you for your time here today, and I will now pass it over to Matt Biancheri .
Good morning. I am Matt Biancheri. I'm the Global Finance Director for PIC, and I've been fortunate to be working with the Genus PIC teams for nine years. All right, I'd like to start with some more discussions on the PIC royalty model because it continues to be a core element of our strategy. PIC royalty fees have two components. The initial sale of PIC genetics on a royalty contract usually includes a payment that covers the cost to produce and deliver the genetics, and as Todd explained earlier, this could be a boar, a gilt, or a dose of semen. But the real value of the royalty model comes in future months as pigs are weaned or pigs are sent to market or sows are used, depending on the type of royalty contract....
There are often some trade-offs between a royalty and upfront sale, but there are several reasons why PIC's royalty model has proven to be successful in both up and down markets around the globe. The graphic on the right highlights some of the key reasons why we have found benefits from the royalty model outweigh upfront sales. First, the royalty model aligns the timing of benefits that the customer reaps with payments made to PIC. Secondly, customers are incented to maintain top genetics because high-indexing breeding animals enable higher productivity, robustness, and profits for our customers. Also, PIC royalty fees are not linked to pig or meat prices, so it limits commodity risk in our business. And all of these qualities help strengthen the long-term partnerships that PIC has with customers, and this has always been a fundamental pillar of our strategy.
As you've heard several times today, these partnerships leverage the deep experience across many PIC teams, including technical services, sales, health assurance, supply chain, customer service, collections, and others. The last benefit, but certainly not the least from my perspective, is that royalties typically spread revenues over longer periods of time, which helps bring stability to business results and simplifies financial forecasting. We evaluate all of these factors with every customer contract, and we've been focused on increasing royalties in key markets for years. Four years ago, in fiscal year 2020, about 76% of PIC global genetics were on a royalty contract. The bar chart shows FY 2023 results, with about 85% of PIC's global volumes on royalties, including nearly all of North America sales, followed by Latin America, Europe, and then Asia.
Now, I'd like to provide an update on our PRP pricing strategy, since our management teams have spent a lot of time over the past few years evaluating pricing alternatives for the PRP to accomplish some of the goals that you see on this slide. First, we truly believe the benefits of the PRP will be profound to the global pig industry, especially if we have widespread adoption, and we think standardized pricing plans will aid in this adoption. The PRP will come with a new royalty fee and will be incremental to existing PIC-based genetic royalties. The PRP pricing will require long-term contracts, and we plan to offer a stepped pricing schedule using a sow use fee for the first five years, and then transition to wean pig fees after year five.
This approach offers a few advantages, including revenue recognition that steps up as PRRS resistance builds in customer farms. Secondly, the shift from a sow use fee to a wean pig fee after year 5 will enable our customers and PIC to share in the significant benefits reaped from increased productivity as herds build resistance to PRRS. Also, to further incentivize early adoption, we plan to waive sow use fees for the first 12 months of build billing for customers who sign long-term contracts early in the commercialization period. All of these considerations that you see on this slide reflect our efforts to align PIC and customer goals as we strive to bring PRP to market in a responsible way. Now I want to cover some additional details on timelines. As Elena highlighted earlier, there are many activities underway in multiple countries to gain regulatory approval.
We've also discussed many of the interdependencies in these regulatory and commercialization work streams. Commercialization discussions will begin immediately following regulatory approval in each respective country, as you see in the timelines on the bottom of this chart. We are just beginning discussions with partners in Colombia, and we plan to begin in the United States upon FDA approval in the near future. Also, as we've already mentioned, commercialization in the U.S. is very strategic and will be more complex than other countries because key U.S. export markets will need to be considered to ensure countries that import from the U.S. can accept gene-edited pork. There's no doubt flexibility and agility are going to be critical to ensure compliance and timely execution of this plan.
These timelines may change in the coming months, but as you've heard from all of today's speakers, bringing the PRP to market in a responsible way is a top priority for Genus, and we are managing these initiatives very closely. On my final slide, I want to share some guidance that will help with preliminary financial modeling. This guidance is only for the U.S., where there are currently about 6.1 million sows and where PIC has almost 50% of the market share. Although there are still many scenarios that could impact timing on revenues, we've included some projected U.S. sow volumes that will be on the PRP program at the end of fiscal years 2026, 2028, and 2030....
Based on the expected sustainability, animal welfare, productivity, and employee benefits that we've talked about in our customer operations, we believe we could have 80% of PIC sows in the United States using PRP genetics within 5 years of commercialization. As for PRP pricing, we're targeting a price of $3-$4 per sow per month in the first 5 years of the program. This sow use fee will be applied to inventory sows, and we will step up billing in 12%, in 20 percentage point increments annually for the first 5 years as PRRS resistance builds in our customer farms. After year 5, customers will transition to a wean pig fee, which we expect will be between $1.25 and $1.75.
We expect the productivity gains from the PRP to be measurable, and the wean pig model enables sharing of these benefits between PIC and our customers. And again, the PRP royalty will be a new and incremental fee. It'll start with a sow use fee, that will end, and then we'll transition to a wean pig fee. As for costs, incremental investments to globally expand the PRP germplasm, as Nick outlined earlier, will be in the mid-single-digit % of PRP revenues. We don't expect any material investments in sales, general, and administrative functions. We have good visibility to third-party payments, which we expect will be in the low single-digit % of PRP revenues. These payments will be driven by events like market authorizations, first commercial sale, and a slaughter pig volume threshold.
Lastly, we will see decreases in regulatory costs related to the PRP program as decisions are made in key target countries. That summarizes the latest financial estimates as we see them today, and I'm now going to hand over to Alison for some closing remarks.
Well done. Thank you, Matt. Good morning, everybody. I'm Alison Henriksen, and I've been Genus's CFO for the last three years. Unlike my colleagues, I don't have a long history of working in animal genetics, or with customers in agriculture, but I'm a bit like Banks consumers, I love eating pork, and, more importantly, I really care about animal welfare, and, it's very rewarding, for me to play a part in providing a solution that will stop animals like, well, like this piglet, from suffering. So in my presentation, I wanted to tie everything back to Genus and how we're viewing the future. So as Jorgen noted earlier, the last few years have seen significant investment in the business through R&D, capital expenditure, and spend on our biological assets.
These investments future-proof our business for many years to come and have allowed us to bring PRP to the threshold of commercialization. We really are living our vision for pioneering animal genetic improvement to help nourish the world, and we're doing it in a sustainable way. You can see the impact of these investments on our return on invested capital. This has reduced to a mid-teens % from over 20% a few years ago, although still comfortably above our weighted average cost of capital. And what I want you to take away is that we're now beyond this peak of investment. Our focus is on leveraging the investments made over the last few years to drive returns back towards 20% and beyond. In this regard, PRP is undoubtedly a very exciting driver for us.
But I wouldn't want you to think PRP is our only avenue to grow our return on invested capital. Rather, it's one of several levers we have to grow returns, and Jorgen highlighted those within our key strategic priorities. I'd also like to reiterate our medium-term financial objectives. Those of you that know us well will have seen these charts many times. We remain committed to a 10% five-year CAGR in operating profit growth, 90%+ in annual cash conversion, 1-2 x debt leverage, and 2.5-3 x earnings cover. Our target for operating profit has excluded gene editing for some years, but even if we included that, we exceeded the 10% target of profit growth in the five-year period ending FY 2023. Importantly, I'd also flag that these medium-term objectives exclude the impact of PRP.
So to be clear, this means we expect PRP commercialization to be incremental to our delivery of these targets in a few years' time. Now, with that, let me conclude with our key messages from today's presentation. As I've just said, we are very focused on delivering compelling returns on the investments we've made. We've highlighted today that PRP is a pioneering use of gene editing technology. It will transform animal welfare and reduce the environmental impact of rearing pigs. We're very excited to be bringing this technology to the market. You've also heard today why PIC is uniquely positioned to deliver PRP. We have the market-leading genetics, an unparalleled global supply chain, and deep customer relationships to bring this technology to market. And as you've seen, we've got the team that can deliver this. We are also making good regulatory progress.
As Jorgen said, the positive FDA determination we received a few weeks ago is our first step. There will be more to come, and we continue to make progress submitting documentation and engaging with the various regulatory bodies. We've shown you that we have clear commercialization plans in place, which will take some years to be fully realized. However, as you've heard, we thought carefully about how to optimize the speed of adoption and dissemination through our go-to-market plans, and we believe there are compelling shared benefits to all stakeholders. Finally, we've given you a sense of the PRP financial opportunity in the U.S., and clearly, as we expand the rollout of PRP elsewhere in the world, the financial opportunity will be even greater. Bringing PRP to market should be financially transformative for Genus over time, and our growth is not just about PRP.
We can see multiple avenues by which we can drive our returns higher to deliver compelling returns on these investments that we've made over the last few years.