Animal Pharm: publisher's notes

To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Oh for heaven's sake!

2007-11-02T13:23:00.001Z

A fleeting post this, but I think you'll appreciate it!

The politics of bluetongue vaccination in the UK are growing increasingly acrimonious. While I don't necessarily agree with everything that this blogger writes, one thing is fairly certain: If Merial aren't allowed to resume work on a bluetongue vaccine at Pirbright within the next few days, it will be a cheerless spring for many UK livestock farmers.

http://warmwell.blogspot.com/2007/11/their-brains-are-in-their-pockets.html

Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water... FMD again

2007-09-12T12:51:00.000Z

Less than 48 hours after the all-clear was sounded, the movement restrictions are back, new control zones are in place and more cattle are being culled as I type.

This is the last thing that the UK farming industry needed. More foot and mouth.

And in Egham of all places?

Egham in Surrey, for those of you who don't know it, is pretty much the heart of leafy outer London commuter territory. I was quite surprised to learn that there are actually still farms in the area. I suspect (but I admit I dont know) that these are not significant commercial operations but hobby farms and smallholdings.

Initial lab tests have confirmed that the suspect herd was infected with foot and mouth. The strain has, I understand, yet to be confirmed. But obviously the likelihood is that it's the same one that escaped from the Pirbright site and triggered last month's outbreak 30km away.

We thought it was all over. It isn't now.

Dog bites man: well where do you think the foot and mouth leaked from?

2007-09-07T10:13:00.000Z

We had the anti-big business voices decrying Merial from the word go, with not so much as a skerrick of evidence, on the basis that a big profit-driven corporation was obviously not going to care as much about releasing a nasty virus as much as a decent public-service laboratory.

Well I've met folks from both establishments and I'm happy to stand up and say that they're equally nice, equally conscientious, equally well qualified.

The facilities they occupy are about equally well-designed. One is knocking on a bit. One isn't.

And the other area where the two are not entirely equal is in terms of finance. Merial is well-funded. IAH isn't.

That's not to say that Merial isn't efficiently managed. Of course it is or it wouldn't be the size that it is today. But IAH has been run on a shrinking government shoestring for quite some time and I'm willing to bet that by comparison with Merial its maintenance budget is, well, shall we just say somewhat on the small side?

Martin Shirley has asked, repeatedly as I understand it, for additional funds to repair problems that he knew might pose a potential hazard. His requests appear to have been ignored.

It's the bureaucrat (or polititian) who decided against providing that funding who should be feeling the unwelcome warmth of the spotlight today, not Professor Shirley.

And a final word on big business for those who were convinced from the off that Merial was the source: how could it possibly be in any company's commercial interests to hit the headlines for starting a disease outbreak among its own client base?

Doh!

Mind you, in retrospect, (wonderful thing retrospect; ditto hindsight) I suppose Merial might be pondering the wisdom of disputing paying for repairs to the infamous pipe, even if the pipe in question isn't actually their responsibility.

Stopping the race that stops a nation? Say it ain't so!

2007-08-29T11:32:00.000Z

Equine influenza is, obviously, never good news.

Distressing for animals. Distressing for owners. Taxing for veterinarians.

Troubling for everyone involved in equine industries.

But the news that Australia has detected the virus in recent days was more painful than tidings of your average outbreak.

The position of the Melbourne Cup in the psyche and the hearts of Australians is hard to convey to non-Aussies. "The race that stops a nation" is the accepted cliche. But, in common with most cliches, it's a truism.

On the first Tuesday of every November in every workplace, school and college, all productive activity ceases for the duration of the race itself and in most, a "Melbourne Cup lunch" ensures that little, if anything, actually gets done all day.

The Australian who hasn't got a stake in at least one Melbourne Cup sweepstake is a rare bird indeed. Betting shops routinely have queues out of the front door on the preceding Monday, mostly once-a-year punters who never have a flutter on anything else - but never fail to have their $1 on the Melbourne Cup.

It's more than a decade since I lived in Australia but one of my two tiny annual wagers is placed on whatever takes my fancy in the Melbourne Cup. And I have even been known to bake Lamingtons for my staff on Cup day...

To the best of my knowledge, the race has never previously been cancelled. To do so now is almost unthinkable.

Almost.

In the face of a burgeoning equine 'flu outbreak, it's the only sensible course of action.

But that doesn't make it any easier.

Foot-and-mouth? Or something else altogether?

2007-08-14T14:35:00.000Z

For an (ex)journalist, I'm surprisingly moderate when it comes to conspiracy theories and hypotheses that are a bit out of the mainstream. I've come up with one or two in my time (anthrax killing Scottish heroin addicts a few years back springs to mind!) but only one or two. Well, three or four maybe. Tops.

If you number any journos among your social circle you will appreciate that this is a very modest number indeed, possibly because I'm also rather a skeptic by nature.

So, I am not going to expound at great length the thought that crossed my mind when I saw the location of the latest suspected case of foot-and-mouth in the UK - Romney Marsh on the far east coast.

I am simply going to share two things with you.

The first is a map. Roughly in the centre is Romney Marsh, to the left Pirbright, Surrey and to the right, well, Belgium, basically.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=

And the second is the fact that among the first clinical signs of both foot-and-mouth and bluetongue are "slobbering" and/or "excessive salivation".

Wonder which way the wind's blowing?

Plague, pestilence and floods - (well, foot and mouth and flooding, actually)

2007-08-06T12:59:00.000Z

We gossip a lot in my (former) profession. Especially when there's a big story breaking and if you're an agricultural or animal health journalist, a foot and mouth outbreak IS a big story. We'll talk to practically anyone in the hope of turning up an interesting angle or a nugget of information that the rest of the pack has missed.

So I'm surely not the only reporter who heard tales fromlocal barstaff about completely flooded cellars last Saturday, 28th July. That's just about the right point on the putative timeline to make one wonder whether there might be a connection with the escape of the foot-and-mouth virus into the local environment.

Given that I'm not a scientist and I have only modest knowledge of the Pirbright biosecurity set-up, I don't know if that's a viable hypothesis or not.

And not being a journalist any longer, it's not even my job to go and find out. (and believe me that stings at a time like this!) Instead, I've handed over my pet theory to Animal Pharm's new editor, Jamie Day.

Having to carry on with business plans and budgets at a time like this seems particularly unfair. I'm reduced to checking my own publication's website just to stay up to date!

Foot and Mouth? Foot in Mouth...

2007-08-06T07:49:00.001Z

You could argue that it's really rather sad that it takes an industry crisis to kickstart my blog again. Fair enough, actually. It is, frankly, a bit sad.

But that I suppose is in the nature of journalists. And as an ex-journalist, opportunities to put pen to paper (oh alright, fingers-to-keyboard-to-screen if you prefer) are getting thinner on the ground, so the blog comes into its own.

But I digress. (No change there, then.)

At the weekend, I was staying in a charming little place called Tilford Woods, not far from Flexford, as I have done for a couple of weekends just lately.

Flexford, as you may recall, is the site of the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK.

Being a classic news junkie, and a bit starved of excitement lately because of this promotion to publishing, a promptly hopped in the car and high-tailed it down to Flexford where I mingled with agricultural and mainstream journalists all doing that rather incestuous thing where, in the absence of anyone else to interview, we more or less interview each other...

"Pirbirght?" I exclaimed airily on Saturday morning.... "Don't be daft. I'd bet my next paycheck it didn't come from Pirbright." And then I held forth about their fantastic biosecurity and wonderfully professional staff for a good ten minutes.

Ho hum.

That's my professional credibility down the drain then.

But you know, I still find it hard to believe. At the Institute for Animal Health and at Merial, the biosecurity measures are stringent and thorough. The staff are incredibly professional. At both facilities, everyone understands the consequences if a virus escapes. And it's in nobody's interest to alienate their own stakeholders.

From what I understand, it's clear now that there have been no obvious breaches of biosecurity. If I were responsible for the investigation from here onwards (and obviously I'm not), I would be asking myself not just "how could this happen?" but "why did this happen now?"

What's new?

What's changed?

What's different?

What else has happened recently that hasn't happened before?

And whatever the answers to those questions, that's where I'd start looking.

Could the search finally be over?

2007-05-14T11:24:00.000Z

Hiring a new editor for Animal Pharm has been a little bit of a challenge. (That, for those of you from beyond UK shores, is an example of English understatement. And irony.)

What a strange mix of candidates have flowed through my inbox. Some over-qualified. Some completely unqualified and some with great strengths in one or two areas but lacking a little too much in others. And some just plain puzzling.

But, cross your fingers for me gentle readers, the end may be in sight.

I can't share the name yet. There are still one or two procedural hurdles to be overcome.

But I hope that by the time I get on a plane for the US early on Wednesday morning, the details will be sorted out and everything will be signed, sealed and delivered shortly thereafter.

Watch this space...

Finally, an update....

2007-05-02T09:29:00.000Z

Obviously I've been conspicuous by my literary absence for the past month and a half. Three main reasons:

1. Animal Pharm still lacks an editor, which has an unavoidable impact on my working day;

2. I have been blessed (if that's the word I'm looking for) with a tranche of new titles to look after as well as the Animal Pharm portfolio: a collection of academic/scientific journals. This is an area of publishing that's entirely new to me; undeniably interesting but it's taking a little while to get up to speed with the idiosyncratic way things are currently done in this particular field;

3. I am researching the feasibility of several new products to add to the portfolio.

Some of the new products lie within the animal health field, but not all. So, again, a bit of a learning curve happening here.

While I'm tapping away, I think I'd like to add my random musing for the morning.

Lord Browne, formerly of BP.

I found it deeply sad that in the 21st century anyone should feel the need to conceal their sexuality from the media for the sake of career or business success. But perhaps it's easy for those under 45 to say that.

When John Browne began his working life at BP, homosexuality had only just been decriminalised and still carried considerable stigma. Thankfully, in most working environments, that's no longer the case - but old fears die even harder than old habits.

On the other hand, I found it quite inspiring that among colleagues, politicians and business contacts his orientation was apparently well known and, until now, never hampered his success as a business leader.

Concealing the manner of his meeting with an erstwhile partner, in a legal context, was wrong and an error of judgement. Resigning for that seems fair enough and is to be applauded rather than regretted.

But the fact that Lord Browne felt the need to conceal it in the first place is something for which we should all feel a measure of regret.

Schering-Plough to head the league table after Intervet buy?

2007-03-12T13:00:00.000Z

On Friday, Animal Pharm reporter Max Thomas attended a presentation by Organon about its imminent minority IPO.

And when he sat down today to finish writing up the story, it was already obsolete!

Early this morning, Organon's parent Akzo Nobel announced it was selling the whole enterprise to Schering-Plough.

This may, or may not, catapault Schering-Plough to the top of the animal health industry league table, depending on which set of figures you put your faith in. It's probably too early to be sure.

But one thing IS sure, they're going be giving Pfizer and Merial a run for their money.

So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehn...

2007-03-12T12:53:00.000Z

Well, it's happened.

Animal Pharm's editor has flown the coop. Ben Deighton, a colleague for several years now, has decided to move over to AFX Newswire and try his hand at mainstream financial journalism.

Ben made a significant contribution to Animal Pharm and took over from me as editor just a year ago.

We'll all miss having him around. The office will be a great deal quieter!

Watch this space for the first news of his replacement. Interviewing begins this week.

Incidentally, if you think you might be a suitable candidate, you can find more information about the role at: http://www.animalpharmnews.com/careers.shtml

Team working under difficult climatic conditions

2007-02-16T16:38:00.000Z

It's not getting any better is it? My punctuality on the blog front, I mean.

This time around, my excuse is that I was despatched on a management training course at Ashridge College.

And I have to say it was a damn good excuse too. Very hard work and worth every minute.

For those of you familiar with this sort of thing, it may be of moderate interest to you to know that Animal Pharm's publisher is:

A) A Pragmatist, Activist and Reflector, in precisely equal measures

B) Red-Blue, with a Red-Green-Blue conflict sequence

C) A SHAPER and to a lesser extent a plant and a resource investigator

And that's just for starters...

Ashridge's Introduction to Management Course was, without doubt, the most practical and valuable training course I've ever attended. And course tutor Barbara Banda was extraordinarily effective and inspiring. I'm still faintly astonished by how much I learned and how quickly.

I'm also deeply chuffed to be able to say that I am already seeing results in terms of more effective working relationships with one other department in particular.

Ashridge is also, incidentally, probably the most beautiful business college in the world. I grant you I haven't seen very many - three or four at most. But nevertheless I feel pretty damn confident in that assertion.

On the Thursday morning of our course, we woke to hear that almost the whole of the UK was blanketed with snow. And the college looked pretty much exactly the way it does at the top of this page. Stunning.

Mind you, it did mean that the staff struggled to get to work and Barbara arrived a little over half an hour late.

But no matter, we put the team-working sessions and the previous evening's workshop on work-life balance and time management to good use.

We built a snowman...

666?

2007-01-29T10:51:00.000Z

It often happens. A friend and I will be chatting over coffee or possibly over a G&T and one of those questions will emerge.

"So are we all going to die of bird flu then?"

"Is it true that BSE was really caused by sheep dip?"

"Is it true that you can poison a dog with raisins?"

"Is it true that Febreze kills pets?"

"My dog is limping a lot these days; can I give him an aspirin?"

"I've got a bit of conjunctivitis. My cat had the same thing last year. Would it be all right to use up the rest of her eyedrops?"

"So can you get hold of ketamine then?"

(Stock answers: No. No. With difficulty. No. No; go and see your vet. NO; go and see your doctor! Please go away and don't bother me again.)

In the same category as these classics, I would have placed "one day we'll be barcoding the cows, won't we..."

And I would have been wrong. It seems that we might indeed be barcoding the cows and sooner than you (or I) think.

Somark Innovations has successfully tested a biocompatible RFID (radio frequency identification) ink in cattle and laboratory rats.

The company has announced that its tests demonstrated the effectiveness of injecting and reading a biocompatible chipless RFID ink "tattoo" within the skin of animals.

Initially the company plans to market the technology to the livestock industry to help identify and track cattle, and mitigate export trade loss from BSE concerns.

Given my last post about the sense and value behind livestock identification systems, I can hardly quibble with this. And, in fact, given that we've used tattoos as a means of identifying animals for decades and that I'm in favour of id systems in principle, there's no reason why this story should have left me quite as gobsmacked as it did.

So why did my jaw practically hit my keyboard when I read this?

Well, after considerable soul searching I have come to the conclusion that it's just because if you'd asked me over one of those aforementioned cups of coffee when I thought this might happpen, I'd have said not for a couple of decades yet.

Clearly, I'm falling behind the times.

In other words, I'm getting old!

National Animal Identification Scheme

2007-01-25T09:45:00.000Z

For those of us in the UK who remember the emergence of BSE, the classical swine fever outbreak a few years back and the more recent foot and mouth epidemic, animal identification and traceability is unquestionably A Good Thing. So much so that it almost qualifies as a no-brainer.

It can come as quite a shock therefore to stumble across blogs unashamedly dedicated to campaigning against the USA's proposed National Animal Identification Scheme.

I've come across occasional conspiracy theories among the UK agricultural community - mostly aimed at Brussels and the European bureaucrats rather than UK politicos - but nothing on the scale suggested by the blog that I encountered this morning.

http://henwhisperer.blogspot.com/2007/01/much-to-talk-about-today.html

My question to you, gentle reader, is how does one effectively address this level of suspicion, prejudice and fear to make the case for NAIS?

Intellectual capital and the animal health industry

2007-01-23T12:07:00.000Z

When a specialist newsletter like Animal Pharm loses a staff member it's a loss in many different respects. Obviously with a small team of writers, it's often a loss on a personal level.

I vividly remember losing our French reporter Nathalie Caplet and German reporter Faryal Mirza inside the space of a few weeks. I'd grown close to both of them in the two years we'd worked together and as well as the strain of losing half an editorial team there was the loss of two good friends to deal with. Nathalie returned to France and Faryal moved to Switzerland where her new husband was studying for a PhD.

(As it turned out, we all kept in touch. I visit Nathalie and her family whenever I get the opportunity (and not just because she lives in Bordeaux!) and Faryal is now one of our freelance business report authors.)

But there's another aspect to the loss of staff from a small editorial team; it's the loss of knowledge, understanding and contacts.

No matter how thorough the handover preparations, inevitably there is a loss of background knowledge. Sometimes that can take years to overcome.

There's no easy way to prevent this happening. But we're working on a way to limit the damage.

I'm in the early stages of preparing the brief for a new database. The aim is to populate it with constantly updated comprehensive company profiles for every company we know of that operates in the animal health industry, in any capacity, anywhere in the world and to link this to everything we've ever written about them.

It occurred to me that my editorial staff are not the only people who would be interested in easy access to that kind of database. So, let me know what you think.

As an Animal Pharm subscriber, would you like to have the option of direct access to our knowledge base?

If so, what would you like to see? What would be most useful?

The more input you give me, the better I can make the end product.

2007-01-16T13:42:00.000Z

Tennis players David Nalbandian and Andy Roddick were born. So, for that matter, were actresses Kirsten Dunst and Billie Piper, heir-to-the-heir to the UK throne Prince William, singer LeAnn Rimes, soccer player Jermaine Defoe and Aussie swimmer Ian Thorpe.

Rather worryingly, at the ripe old age of 25, the latter has just retired from his sport having achieved everything he had set out to achieve.

Also born in 1982, and most emphatically not contemplating retirement, was Animal Pharm.

Twenty five years ago, I was in my first year at university (whereas the editorial team's youngest member was scarcely out of kindergarten) and not terribly interested in veterinary pharmaceuticals, agriculture, animal health or any of the other fields that we cover.

But in the decade or so that I have been involved in the industry, the two most marked trends that I've observed have been a consistent trend towards consolidation - hardly unique to the animal health industry - and the growing strength of the companion animal market compared to the livestock products market.

It's fitting then, that the front page story for our anniversary issue is a direct reflection of this last trend.

Long-time livestock product specialist and stalwart Elanco has a new sibling. Eli Lilly has announced the creation of a new companion animal products division: Lilly Animal Health.

Check out our next issue for more details.

In 1982...

2007-01-16T13:16:00.000Z

A little slow off the mark, perhaps...

2007-01-11T09:36:00.000Z

A very happy new year to you and to all the readers of Animal Pharm. I hope your festive season was as relaxing and as rewarding as mine. Frankly, I didn't think about work once! (Well, perhaps just the once. Or twice. Well you know how it is...)

Now that we're all back on deck, preparations are underway for Animal Pharm's 25th Anniverary issue and an anniversary party to go along with it.

We've booked the Piano Bar at Boisdale on Bishopsgate for 17th January.

Invitations went in the mail around Christmas but responses have been a bit on the slow side, so if you're among the tardy responders, do something about it soon please or your name won't be on the list and you'll miss out on a Boisdale's haggis tartlet.

And if you haven't received an invite but you'd like to come along and meet the editorial team, drop me a line.

Reflecting on the fact that Animal Pharm is 25 years old, brought home to me that I've been working on the product (with one short break) for more than eight years myself, which seems scarcely credible. I joined in November 1998, fresh from a twelve year sojourn in Australia. I suspect the inumerable Aussie sheep stories that kept appearing over my first few months in the job might have raised a few eyebrows here and there.

The stories that stand out most clearly in my mind include the breaking of the foot and mouth epidemic in the UK, BSE's appearance in the USA, Dow AgroScience's first plant-made vaccine and the approval for the two veterinary DNA vaccines.

Peter Jones' retirement from the EMEA and arrival at IFAH brought a smile or two.

But one, or rather two, of the stories that really stick in my mind involved MacDonalds and Elanco.

I think it was a Monday morning. MacDonalds issued a press release announcing that their suppliers were going to be obliged to stop using antibiotic growth promotants. They took care to thank many people and organisations who had served on the advisory committee that reached this decision and drew up guidelines for suppliers.

Seven hours later, we received a press release from Elanco Animal Health announcing the approval and launch of Optaflex, a new antibiotic-free growth promoter...

A quick check of the Monday press release confirmed my recollection. Elanco was the animal health company represented on the MacDonalds advisory committee.

Smart operators!

My only excuse is the time of year...

2006-12-21T17:22:00.000Z

It's not good, is it? The interval between postings here, I mean.

Clearly it's time for a New Year's Resolution!

"I hearby resolve to post weekly, come what may."

Let's hope that one lasts longer than the 2006 one about the gym....

Anyway, this morning the proof copies of the first Animal Pharm Yearbook & Directory arrived in the office. Much excitement all round. If nothing else, it's going to be a fantastically useful tool for the editorial team so at least I have four happy customers!

Copies will go out to Animal Pharm subscribers early in the new year.

Speaking of which, may I wish you the compliments of the season and a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2007.

And no, the promise to post weekly doesn't kick in until then!

Yearbooks! Directories! Heaven preserve us!

2006-12-08T15:20:00.000Z

The finish line is in sight. But the home straight still looks awfully long from here.

At the very end of December, we publish Animal Pharm's first Yearbook and Directory. One of the tasks we set ourselves (oh all right, I set for us) was to identify the Top 100 companies in the animal health industry and compile a ranking.

I mean really, how hard could it be?

Hah!

It was interesting to begin with. We decided to omit the purely nutrition-based companies and tackle them separately, perhaps in next year's edition.

We opted for estimated or actual 2006 animal health revenue in US dollars as the measure.

We decided not to count Monsanto on the grounds that Posilac isn't really an animal health product as such. We can't really count Dow yet for obvious reasons.

And we made some interesting discoveries. Dechra has grown far larger than we realised. IVX, now that the various bits of Teva, Phoenix and IVAX have come together, is much bigger than we first thought. Abbott Laboratories too is bigger than we knew. (Well, probably. They're a bit cagey with their numbers.)

And they're not the only ones. The fly in the ointment with this exercise of course is that once you get past the top thirty or forty, you're into the privately owned operations. The ones that don't have to file financial reports anywhere.

But we've done our best. The results go to press next week. And then, no doubt, the firestorm will commence...

If we have under- or over-ranked your company, just get on the phone and let me know. We hope to publish an updated version, based on 2006 actuals, mid-way through 2007.

Animal Health Industry Salary Survey

2006-12-05T14:43:00.000Z

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Let's do a salary survey!"

"How hard can it be?"

Well now we know. Really quite tricky!

Our readers are dotted all over the world so obviously we needed it to be global and flexible.

Which currency to use? Should we choose one (but which?) and ask everybody to convert their figures themselves? If so, should we state the rate that they should use?

Should we do all the conversions ourselves? (Horrors!)

What about benefits that are legally required in some markets but optional in others?

Should we ask about annual leave? What about those idiosyncratic benefits that creep in here and there?

To find out what we decided, take a look for yourself.

We aim to publish the results in February 2007. Let me know if I've missed anything.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=907512930315">

Mea culpa.

2006-11-28T11:14:00.000Z

It's not good, is it?

Such a sizeable gap in posts is pretty poor practice.

In my defence, I've been caught up with honing and rehearsing a presentation to members of the Informa PLC board about Animal Pharm's activities in 2006 and plans for 2007.

In fact, if I can work out how to upload a Powerpoint presentation to this site, I'll share it with you. (But don't hold your breath... I can't afford to lose subscribers!)

And right after that came the Specialist Information Publishers Association (SIPA) workshop on moving to Web 2.0.

This was a highly thought-provoking day. More about mind set than technology (good because I'm not much of a techie!) it made us all think about ways of using the web to do a better job and draw more input and hands-on involvement from our subscribers and the wider animal health community.

You have been warned...

The new website launches in January.

Something completely different: Barbaro and a veterinary medicine conundrum

2006-11-01T16:36:00.000Z

Among the animal health-related Blogs that I check out from time to time is the wonderfully titled Dolittler series authored by Dr Patty Khuly.

In her Veterinary Points of View blog update yesterday, she reflects on veterinary medicine and its role in the career of the outstanding thoroughbred racehorse Barbaro.

One of the joys of Dr Khuly's blogs is that not only are they often thought-provoking and frequently funny, they're written in a style that's a cut above the usual blogger offering.

Here's a link to the Barbaro article. Enjoy.

http://www.dolittler.com/index.cfm/2006/10/30/pet.vet.dog.cat.horse.vpov.10.30.06

May you live in interesting times...

2006-10-30T18:36:00.000Z

When foot-and-mouth disease hit the UK in 2001, I was a moderately experienced reporter on Animal Pharm, covering North America and Australasia. But we were short-staffed and we had no UK reporter in place at the time, so it fell to me to tackle the issue.

What happens to you when you are at the coal face in an honest-to-goodness crisis like that is a curious, in some ways distasteful, thing. A little bit like war reporting I imagine.

Working days are more exciting. More stimulating. More challenging. More intense. The reporter feels more valuable, has a sense of making a serious contribution. Playing a part in something important. Friends and family are actually interested in what you have to say over the dinner table (at least for the first month or two, they are...). They were without doubt the most exciting months I've spent working on Animal Pharm.

And at the same time, if you have any sort of a conscience (and most of us do), they were hellish.

Even if your perspective and your goals are a little different to mainstream news reporters, you can't help but encounter stories of devastating pain and loss on a daily basis. Grown men crying over the loss of a herd built up over generations. Or weeping in the knowledge that they were responsible for bringing 'dangerous contact' animals into their district and so responsible too for culls on all the neighbouring farms.

And then there's the generous daily sprinkling of stories of contributory governmental, ministerial or departmental ineptitude, sloth and pigheadedness.

It's a rare reporter who isn't personally affected by it somehow; who doesn't develop at least a modicum of contempt for ministries, politicians and civil servants in general. Partisanship is frequently the result, despite one's best efforts to fight it.

I still have a recurring nightmare that comes complete with the smell of charred cattle carcasses.

Not to mention a lingering low opinion of the UK's last chief vet and his handling of the epidemic.

So, when I was woken at 5.45am last Friday by the news that we had a suspected case of FMD on our hands once again ("Cheale Meats again? Surely not?"), yes, I was in the office well before 7.00am in a state of high excitement.

But at lunchtime you would have found me in John Wesley's church around the corner, asking for those preliminary test results to come in negative.

But the worst thing of all about last Friday was this discovery.

Four years after the end of the epidemic, despite report after report on the subject, all concluding much the same thing, official UK policy remains to cull.

FMD - initial test results

2006-10-27T11:53:00.000Z

First tests on samples from the suspected FMD case have proved negative.

Foot and Mouth suspicion in the UK

2006-10-27T08:09:00.000Z

A suspected case of foot and mouth disease has been reported at the Cheale Meats abbatoir in Essex in the UK.

Samples are currently being tested at the Pirbright laboratory. Results possibly later today.

Cheale Meats was the site of the discovery of the first cases of FMD during the UK's 2001 epidemic.

2006-10-26T12:43:00.000Z

The feedback that we've received so far has been so positive that it's quite surprised us.

So I'm going to take one more opportunity here to thank everyone who entered, all of our judges, everyone who attended on the evening and the Informa team who contributed to making it such a success, but particularly events manager Charlotte Garratt without whom it simply wouldn't have happened.

Thanks Charlie.

2006-10-26T12:39:00.000Z

Animal Health Company of the Year?

Pfizer!

2006-10-26T12:33:00.000Z

Merial's Vaxxitek HVT +IBD took the Best New Veterinary Product for Livestock award. And Caroline Pfeffer, global project manager, was our only female recipient all evening. Presenting the award is IfTA's Michael Hemprich.

Michael used the occasion to make a point about livestock product development. "It is very encouraging for us to see that so many companies are still willing to put a great scientific and financial effort in the development of animal health products for livestock," he noted, "as this becomes more and more a "neglected" area of our industry - for reasons which may be understandable, such as higher regulatory requirements for example."

2006-10-26T12:29:00.000Z

"Coming up here today, we didn't know if we were going to win this award. But we REALLY, REALLY wanted to!"

Howard Wilder of Genitrix was so delighted by winning the award for Achievement by a Small or Medium Enterprise that he thanked "everyone who has ever had anything to do with Genitrix".

The company's innovative introduction of an ivermectin-based antiparasitic for rabbits in 2006, a product which seems to have sold out in seconds flat after its launch, was just one reason for its success.

2006-10-26T12:25:00.000Z

A beaming Dr Herman Joseph Baaken of Bayer receives the award for Best New Veterinary Product, Companion Animals, from an equally beaming Dr Klaus Hellmann of sponsor company Klifovet.

The winning product was Bayer's feline spot-on anthelmintic Profender.

2006-10-26T12:21:00.000Z

So that you can appreciate the aesthetics of the set-up and indeed the venue - not easy once the business of the evening gets underway, to be honest.

2006-10-26T11:55:00.000Z

First, an apology. Neglecting one's blog for several days is a cardinal sin, obviously, and one that I'll be trying not to repeat in a hurry.

Secondly, in response to a request (My first request - how exciting!) pictures of the Animal Pharm Industry Excellence Awards follow...

(Not an exhaustive collection, but a handful of edited highlights...)

Animal Pharm's Inaugural Industry Excellence Awards: let's call it a B plus...

2006-10-13T08:44:00.000Z

The thing about awards ceremonies is that they're a bit like childbirth (I admit I don't speak from personal experience on both counts here).

Months and months of work, stress and discomfort followed by a burst of pain, intense effort and misery. And then, by some mysterious alchemy, the big event itself wipes the worst of the whole preamble from your memory and you find yourself thinking that it was all well worth it and you're looking forward to doing it all again next year.

The British Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave said, as he stepped from the boat after crossing the line for his fourth Olympic gold, "Anyone who sees me go anywhere near a boat again has my permission to shoot me."

That's more or less how I felt yesterday.

But not today.

I was taken aback, touched, surprised and delighted by the amount of positive feedback and support and all-around happiness being expressed by people around me both during the ceremony and after the formalitites at the first Animal Pharm Industry Excellence Awards last night.

Hand on heart, I can't say it went perfectly. It didn't. But it went well. The delight of the winners was a delight to behold.

(And if you want to know who they were, you'll have to check the Breaking News Blog to find out!)

http://animalpharmbreakingnews.blogspot.com

I thanked everybody I could think of last night; but if you're reading this and you were among the contributors in any way, thank you again.

You did us proud. I hope we did the same for you.

(Steve Redgrave went on to compete in the following Olympics; he earned a gold medal there too.)

Marvellous...

2006-10-09T13:37:00.000Z

Four days to go and I'm coming down with a heavy cold.

I'm drugged up to the eyebrows with Nurofen cold + flu but, nevertheless, it now seems inevitable that the posh frock will be accessorised with a glowing red nose. Very fetching!

But less worrying than the prospect of losing my voice. (Although some might feel differently about that of course!)

A second fresh topic of worry has arisen; there are people out there telling their colleagues that they're attending the event, but they haven't actually RSVP'd to us.

How many of them are lurking out there? We identified one, but what if there are more?

Should we have a spare table set up and waiting or should we send them away into the darkness unfed?

Well obviously I'm not going to allow the latter. But for heaven's sake, if you're planning to be there please tell us!

Pet Insurance

2006-10-05T18:33:00.000Z

I understand that pet insurance is more popular in the UK than in any other country. Why is that, I wonder?

One might have thought that health insurance for pets would be an easier idea for Americans to get their collective heads around than Brits who are, after all, accustomed to getting their own healthcare largely free at the point of care.

Be that as it may, here's an interesting article I came across in one of today's UK papers.

http://money.guardian.co.uk/insurance_/story/0,,1888141,00.html

Animal Health Industry Excellence Awards

2006-10-05T10:50:00.000Z

One week to go. A week in which we find ourselves wondering why people take so long to RSVP to an invitation and just how late we can leave the table plan without striking fear, alarm and despondency into the heart of the printer.

Still, we have people flying in from the US, India, Australia, Singapore and all over Europe to take part in the event. Three of the 'big four' companies are well represented and so are many of the middle-ranking firms in the industry.

And the lovely Trude Mostue flies in from Norway (where she's taking part in Norwegian television's edition of Strictly Come Dancing) on the Thursday morning to act as our host for the event.

I can confidently say that the silver envelopes containing the winners' names have one or two surprises in store too.

I'd like to tell you that I'm getting very excited about the whole thing.

Actually, I'm lying awake at night imagining strikes by Scandinavian airline workers and security alerts in the Docklands.

Generics: a little something to get you thinking...

2006-10-03T15:12:00.000Z

Competition on the generic veterinary drug front... It's only going to get more intense, I think we all acknowledge that.

And most of the growth is expected to come from India and China. But might there be somewhere closer to home that you need to be keeping an eye on:

This blogger thinks so:
http://caivs.blogspot.com/2006/06/malta-employs-patent-quirk-to-cash-in.html

Little short of mayhem...

2006-10-03T11:04:00.000Z

What a week. And, heaven help us, it's only Tuesday.

I used to manage awards programmes in a previous life when I worked for professional engineering and accounting organisations. I confess that I had forgotten just how much work is involved and how resource intensive they can be. In a word, extremely. If I'd had a clearer recollection of just how much sweat and how many tears are involved, I'd have thought twice. Thrice probably. (No actual blood yet, but it can only be a matter of time!)

Still, Richard Daub is installed in the New York office and already reporting for us. (You can read about Richard's day-by-day experiences of learning about the animal health industry at animalpharmusa.blogspot.com)

If your company is based in North America, get in touch with Richard and say hello. I know he'd be delighted to hear from you.

His email address is: richard.daub@informausa.com He's based in our New York office.

Budget permitting, we're hoping to have Richard with us for the first Animal Health Industry Excellence Awards ceremony on October 12th in London. So, those of you coming over for the celebrations may be able to meet him then.

2006-09-29T12:04:00.000Z

Animal Pharm Industry Excellence Awards

2006-09-29T09:54:00.000Z

It's getting closer.

The excellence awards ceremony is less than a fortnight away and the preparations are now nearing the frantic stage.

Battles have been fought with venues, florists and caterers. Printers have been harrassed. Staging companies briefed and briefed again. Judges have been harried and nagged.

VIP and press invitations have gone out - admittedly a bit on the late side. Speeches are being written. Edited. And rewritten. Winners' names are being engraved on some rather striking awards.

And fingers are being tightly crossed that host Trude Mostue's flight from Norway won't be delayed or worse still cancelled.

It's been a long haul - twelve months of very hard work from a very dedicated team of people. And my goodness, it's an expensive exercise!

But on October 12th, barring unforseen acts of God, all this will come together into a night that the animal health industry can enjoy and be proud of - an evening designed to celebrate the spirit of innovation that drives the industry and reward those who have really excelled at what they do.

And then, finally, we hope and believe that it will all have been worthwhile.

Schering-Plough? Schering-Plough!

2006-09-26T17:08:00.000Z

If you'd told me yesterday that Schering-Plough Animal Health (SPAH) would be the company chosen to tackle the USA's animal ID scheme, frankly I'd have been somewhat sceptical. I could have suggested a whole handful of more likely frontrunners, so the news that SPAH took line honours in this particular race did come as rather a surprise.

But really, why not? Tracking schemes have significant potential to evolve into tools for tracking and managing animal health. And of course, it's a subsidiary, Global Animal Management, rather than SPAH itself that's at the heart of the ID story.

Global Animal Management has been named as the first National Animal Identification System provider by the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The company will use its Animal Tracker program to feed data directly into the USDA's information system. This will allow producers who are already using the company's Tri-Merit age, process and source verification program to easily become members of the animal tracking part of the system.

Hurrah for the EAVPT after all...

2006-09-22T17:55:00.000Z

A 5am start and the delights of the Stansted Express train to the airport. (Aside: I'm ashamed to think that this is the first experience many overseas visitors have of British public transport - but on the other hand perhaps it's just as well not to go loading them with unrealistic expectations for the rest of their trip.)

Then RyanAir to Turin and an unfinished hotel in the middle of nowhere - The Art Hotel Olympic. (Mind you, it'll be delightful when it's completed and the staff were charming.) And the discovery that there was no available public transport to the outlying suburb of Grugliasco and the veterinary faculty of Turin University.

And the cab driver we ended up with knew how to get to Grugliasco, but wasn't entirely sure quite how to find the veterinary faculty...

But eventually we pitched up at the registration desk to be interrogated by Professor Giovanni Re. I say interrogated but, to be fair, it was done with considerable Italian charm. And once I whipped a few copies of Animal Pharm out of the backpack, light seemed to dawn, all was well and we were positively welcomed.

Having said that, what with delays etc, we arrived at a particularly inauspicious time, just as things were winding down for the day so that the EAVPT could spend the latter part of the afternoon conducting its own internal affairs.

So, no interviewees available and not much in the way of technical sessions either!

However, the charming Professor had been kind enough to ask us along to the 'cheese and wine' event. Now, where you come from it may be different, but where I come from, you're lucky to score more than two chunks of cheddar and a glass of indifferent Riesling at one of those.

But they do it rather differently in Turin. A cheese and wine evening runs to several courses...
Highlights were an interesting Piedmontese take on steak tartare with parmesan and some enjoyable local red wines, the Barbera d'Alba in particular.

But the evening was notable mainly for the company of Professor Outi Vainio from the University of Helsinki who raised the idea of an open access publishing model for veterinary pharmacology and toxicology.

Open access scientific publishing is something that another Informa business unit has been looking into. So, I'll be picking their brains over the next two or three weeks about Professor Vainio's idea.

Your input, as always, is most welcome.

What if you work the animal health industry, but you're not a vet?

2006-09-19T20:08:00.000Z

There are copious quantities of qualified veterinarians, veterinary pharmacologists and toxicologists working in the animal health industry. And there are plenty of professional associations catering for their needs.

The European Association of Veterinary Pharmacologists and Toxicologists.

The American Association of Veterinary Pharmacology & Toxicology.

The Association of Veterinarians in Industry.

But what if you come from a marketing background? Or a legal background? You might be a formulation chemist or an engineer or a PR specialist. You might be a middle manager from any one of a dozen different professional backgrounds.

As far as I know, there's no specialist association that fits the bill.

Perhaps there should be?

Avenues for people in the animal health industry to come together, network and learn from one another are surprisingly rare. An animal health or veterinary industry managers' forum could provide a whole raft of ways of expanding contact networks and learning from peers.

Comments and input are welcome. And in the meantime, I'll add it to the 'to do' list...

2006-09-19T14:46:00.000Z

http://learningoasis.org/mrmc/?p=10

http://www.dolittler.com/index.cfm/2006/9/19/pet.vet.9.19.06

Two very different blog posts concerning the use of veterinary medicines, unintended consequences and the decision to address them.

2006-09-19T14:13:00.000Z

In default of lots of interesting conference gossip, I'll share with you one or two of the blogs that I've begun monitoring lately:

http://pet-health-care-central.com/blog

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2006/09/uk_unveils_more.html

http://agwired.com/

http://stemcell.taragana.net

http://www.pharma.nl/v3

A varied bunch to say the least. Incidentally, if you have suggestions for relevant blogs lurking out there that have escaped my attention, do let me know.

2006-09-19T14:07:00.000Z

Technorati Profile

Hello, good evening and welcome...

2006-09-19T12:26:00.000Z

Welcome to the intermittent thoughts of a B2B publisher with a special interest in the world of animal health and veterinary science. If you're interested, you can find the range of products in our animal health portfolio here:

www.animalpharmnews.com
www.animalpharmreports.com
www.animalpharmawards.com
www.animalpharmdirectory.com

But back to the blogging business...

I don't promise startling revelations or even daily updating.

But I will try to keep it as interesting and even thought-provoking from time to time.

A colleague and I had planned to attend the EAVPT conference in Turin on 20th and 21st September to file a story or two for Animal Pharm News and to bring you some of the gossip and the atmosphere of the event.

However, the organisers have, in their wisdom, decided to charge the full delegate registration fee to reporters, editors etc wanting to cover the event. That places it well outside our budget. It probably places it beyond the budget of most interested news publications; a sure way of guaranteeing no press coverage whatever, which is rather a shame for the speakers I think.

But perhaps that's just me.