The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco centers on AquaBounty’s salmon, which are genetically modified to grow faster than normal salmon.
In 2015, the fish became the first genetically modified animal approved for human consumption in the U.S. After clearing other regulatory hurdles.
To ensure the fish do not escape and breed with wild fish, Massachusetts-based AquaBounty says its salmon are raised in tanks and bred to be female and sterile.
In his ruling, Judge Chhabria noted that the FDA determined the probability of the salmon escaping and surviving in the wild to be quite low.
The salmon already has been sold in limited quantities in Canada, where it doesn’t have to be labeled as genetically modified, the company has said.