CEH Report

Table of Contents

Abstract

Worldwide sales of feed additives and pharmaceuticals for the animal industry in 2001 were about $17 billion—an average annual increase of 3.5% from sales of $15 billion in 1997. It is believed that sales increased by approximately 3% in 2002. The United States and Western Europe accounted for about two-thirds of sales and the rest of the world for about one-third in 2001. Sales by region were similar in 2002. Growth in livestock and poultry production has been strong in the rest of the world, and the market potential for feed additives and animal drugs remains vast.

In 2001, world feed additive sales accounted for 49% of total animal health and feed additive sales. Feed additive sales have declined over the past fifteen years because of public health and food safety issues regarding the continuous use of antibacterials in animals (few new antibacterial products receive regulatory approval for use as feed additives). The regulatory process for regulated products in animal health care can take seven to eleven years from discovery to first approval, with an R&D cost of $20–40 million or more for products for food animal registration.

A large amount of the biological expenditure in the rest of the world is for vaccines for foot-and-mouth virus disease. Foot-and-mouth disease is indigenous in many developing countries but has not been a problem in the United States for decades and is seldom a problem in Western Europe. Much of the large use of anthelmintics in the rest of the world is in semitropical to tropical climates where endoparasites are more severe than in milder regions. Until 1994, the only commercial use of bovine somatotropin (BST) was outside the United States and Western Europe in a few countries that were trying to increase milk production. Its use in Western Europe is not allowed and although consumer resistance to dairy products from cows treated with BST was strong in the United States after it was approved in early 1994, estimated 2001 sales were $235 million.

The hundreds of discrete chemicals for animal health and nutrition may be applied or administered in over one thousand different generic and branded concentrations and formulations, according to both end-use requirements and producer-distributor desire for supplier differentiation. This report focuses on only the principal chemicals and chemical groups themselves and it is acknowledged that some of the specific chemical listings are not all-inclusive. Little if any emphasis has been placed on the numerous branded formulations and marketing packages available for most of the products covered; brand name treatment of products has been restricted largely to proprietary chemicals (i.e., those still under patent protection) and, in a few cases, for purposes of illustration.