Life of Our Products

We carefully consider the responsible use and humane treatment of animals in all of our required studies. When we are required to conduct studies to achieve product registrations, we minimise the number of animals to achieve the necessary outcomes. Whenever possible, we will use information that can be derived from existing publications in an effort to limit the number of studies needed.

The scientific purpose of involving animals in the development of our products is reviewed and approved by Regulatory Agencies. For each individual study, an Animal Welfare Committee approves the protocol.

We are committed to the following principles:

• Animals must be treated humanely with greatest consideration given to their health and welfare and consistent with meeting the necessary scientific objectives;
• All animal studies should only be performed after considering whether the numbers of animals can be reduced, replaced by in vitro methods, or the procedures refined to minimise distress.

The Animal Welfare Committee ensures that a minimal number of animals are used and that their treatment is humane, and Dechra inspects all facilities which perform testing to confirm proper care and treatment of animals is evident. Additionally, a full review of the study design will be approved by their Animal Welfare Committee for clinical studies. In all instances only animals with the disease the product is intended to treat will be used and owner consent for the trial is obtained.

All employees, except production and logistics operatives, receive pharmacovigilance training within one month of joining Dechra. This is then verified by the pharmacovigilance e-learning module on Delta. These employees undertake an annual pharmacovigilance refresher training. The pharmacovigilance training outlines the procedure that should be followed by all Dechra personnel if they are informed of a product complaint.

Any time that Dechra receives a report of an adverse event occurring after the administration of one of its products, the Company treats the report seriously and believes that it is Dechra’s obligation to review the case to determine whether its product may have caused or contributed to the adverse event. All suspect adverse reactions are reported to the appropriate regulatory authorities.

The Dechra Service Center in Uldum (DSC) has taken steps to be as environmentally friendly as possible by using 100% recycled paper for stuffing in shippers. All cardboard used for packing is made from 70% to 90% recycled material and all the cardboard boxes for the nutrition range are made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) material. In the rare situations where air pillows are required, these are made from eco-friendly plastic material that is biodegradable. The distribution centre in Auldendorf, Germany, uses old newspapers as fillers in packaging. We are in the process of developing our sustainable packaging strategy and have established a taskforce to look at this.

To maintain the trust of veterinarians and the public, it is important that we provide accurate, fair and objective information on our products and medicines to support their safe and effective use. We do not make false or misleading claims about our products.

We advertise and promote our products fairly using promotional materials which contain balanced, accurate and truthful information. We do not make false or misleading claims about our products. We only promote based on the information included on the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC)/Product Insert which is a document that is approved by the regulators as part of the marketing authorisation of each medicine. We are members of the industry associations in the majority of countries where we have our own sales teams, and follow the industry association's marketing and promotional guidelines in these countries. All our promotional material is approved internally by an appropriately qualified regulatory manager, technical product manager or veterinarian. In addition, we train all customer-facing employees so that they have sufficient product and disease knowledge to enable them to present information on our products accurately and responsibly. We only promote our products to veterinary professionals, using promotional materials approved by authorised persons independent of the sales force.

Promotional compliance is monitored by our country managers and regional sales managers and the internal audit team also conduct a regular review of compliance processes, and corrective actions are taken to address any issues identified.  

The volume and value of payments to animal health professionals is very modest compared to payments to healthcare professionals by the human pharmaceutical industry. We only make modest fee-for-service payments to key opinion leaders who help us develop and deliver educational materials events and to veterinarians who we use to conduct clinical trials. There are currently no regulatory or industry requirements to publicly disclose promotional violations or payments to healthcare professionals.

Our products are all targeted at providing veterinary professionals with solutions for their customer needs. Our products can be divided into four categories: Companion Animal Products (CAP), Food producing Animal Products (FAP), Equine, and Nutrition. We have developed a strong position in providing specialist and clinically necessary novel CAP products, especially in internal medicine and critical care products such as anaesthesia and analgesia, where we have a wide range providing the veterinarian with an optimal solution for most cases. Our FAP products are positioned to match current best practice prescribing habits and to meet the growing awareness for the need for better animal welfare standards.

This sector continues to grow due to increasing pet ownership, advances in better nutrition, increased competence in managing complex conditions by veterinarians, preventative healthcare and wellness and the increasing availability of more specialist pharmaceuticals. We have developed a strong position in providing specialist and clinically necessary novel products, especially in internal medicine and critical care products such as anaesthesia and analgesia, where we have a wide range providing the veterinarian with an optimal solution for every case. We also supply a range of products which complement these products in key therapeutic sectors where we are seen as the company of choice by many veterinarians.

The key driver for growth in FAP is a huge increase in the global demand for high quality animal protein and dairy products. Vaccines are the biggest growth sector of the veterinary market and are anticipated to continue to outgrow therapeutic treatments. There is also a growing awareness to the need for better animal welfare standards, including pain control during procedures such as pig castration and tail docking.  Our portfolio is positioned to match current best practice prescribing habits including our recent move into poultry vaccines.

We have developed a strong position in lameness and pain management with unique products that have superior efficacy compared to historic treatments.