Merck Animal Health has signed a definite agreement to acquire broiler chick sex-sorting company, TARGAN.
“The acquisition of TARGAN’s best-in-class biodevice technology for use in commercial hatcheries complements and accelerates our growing biopharmaceutical presence in poultry and increases our ability to deliver significant customer value globally,” said Rick DeLuca, president, Merck Animal Health.
“Additionally, TARGAN brings device development capabilities that will further strengthen our ability to provide animal health solutions across species. This transaction, coupled with our commercial and scientific expertise, is another example of how we deliver meaningful innovation to our customers while creating new opportunities for the future.”
TARGAN developed artificial intelligence (AI)-powered gender identification technology that uses computer vision to automatically identify and sort feather-sexable birds — approximately 80% of commercial broilers — at speeds up to 160,000 birds per hour.
Unlike conventional systems requiring conveyors and multiple workers to manually separate and gap sorted birds, the system’s modular design handles the entire process automatically through integrated landing and distribution zones. Birds move through the system until cameras capture images for gender determination, with automatic separation occurring downstream without human intervention.
"You don't need conveyors and four other people behind the machine to actually separate and gap the birds by hand," Ramin Karimpour, TARGAN's founder and CEO, explained at the 2025 Poultry Tech Summit. "We are already doing it automatically in our landing zone or distribution zone."
Also at the Poultry Tech Summit, TARGAN announced plans to launch a complementary vaccine delivery system that uses the same AI-powered computer vision technology to individually vaccinate chicks at the same high-speed throughput rates in 2026.
Longstanding relationship between Merck, TARGAN
Merck Animal Health is one of TARGAN’s largest stakeholders and first invested in the company in 2017.
According to a press release, Karimpour said, “Merck Animal Health has been a foundational partner of TARGAN since our inception through its belief and commitment to scientific excellence and a common goal of bringing technological innovation to the livestock industry. Through this proposed acquisition, TARGAN will be able to access resources and infrastructure of Merck Animal Health, which will be critical in deploying TARGAN’s innovative biodevice technology along with their broad portfolio of poultry vaccines for customers.”
The proposed acquisition should take place by the third quarter of 2026, subject to approvals from regulatory authorities and other customary closing conditions.
The purchase price was undisclosed. BofA Securities, Inc. will serve as TARGAN’s exclusive financial advisor and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP will be TARGAN’s legal advisor in connection with the transaction
Poultry Tech Summit to return in 2027
The Poultry Tech Summit brings together inventors, researchers, entrepreneurs, poultry industry professionals and established technology providers to discuss challenges and solutions for all aspects of the poultry supply chain. This one-of-a-kind event focuses on the transition of innovative technologies from researchers and entrepreneurs into commercial applications for the benefit of the poultry industry.
Details about the 2027 Poultry Tech Summit will be unveiled this fall. For more information, go to www.poultrytechsummit.com.
