Continuing our Drug Discovery Commitment to Help Livestock Producers
In today’s world, many of us do not have a strong recognition of the importance that farm animals play in our daily lives. If we take a moment to consider, we realize that our society uses outputs from livestock including protein (meat), milk, eggs, and wool every day. We can begin to understand that the health and well-being of farm animals is a foundational element of our modern life.
Animal wellness requires attentive husbandry, and can be threatened by a variety of diseases, infections, and parasites which can adversely affect their welfare and productivity. In addition to providing fundamental shelter and nutritional requirements, animal caretakers rely on cutting edge science and technology to ensure success in their farming operations.
Since joining MSD Animal Health in 2007, I have had the privilege to contribute to our company’s remarkable new product developments that help farmers sustain their operations by keeping their animals healthy and productive. As a leader of MSD’s Animal Health R&D organization, my focus is to drive new innovations that substantially benefit animal well-being, support the farmers who care for them, and ensure the integrity and safety of the global food chain.
We are uniquely positioned at MSD Animal Health to pursue a risk-balanced portfolio of projects to support food producers. Our research activities range from life-cycle management and optimization of trusted legacy products through highly novel and innovative scientific discoveries which we pursue and develop to real-world products with meaningful impacts. Our discovery scientists can take risk and explore true drug discovery efforts which, just over a decade ago, many in the animal health sector did not think was possible for farm animals. Historically, molecules were repurposed from crop science or human health research.
Our work is not easy. Delivering innovation to livestock producers faces complex global challenges that can require extensive research work around the globe. Overall, the industry is seeing a steady decline of new product registrations for farm animals. But we find work in this space to be rewarding and critical and therefore step into the challenges.
Our efforts have yielded significant impacts – we developed a new ectoparasiticide for poultry, sheep and cattle in a therapeutic segment that had not seen badly needed innovation for several decades. And even with these successes in the parasiticide space, we continue to look for next generation solutions in all species, including aquaculture.
In addition to parasiticides, our research team is committed to studying and identifying treatments for the most prevalent diseases impacting the livestock industry. We work on non-conventional targeted antibacterials to mitigate the negative impacts of infectious diseases in livestock. We have active research programs for coccidiosis, a significant protozoal disease in poultry which has not had any new treatment developments in over a generation.
Historically, many advancements in veterinary medicine were based on research, innovations and discoveries that came from outside veterinary medicine, including human pharmaceutical and crop science discoveries. This research paradigm is changing in animal health – while there are still meaningful opportunities to leverage collaboration from outside animal health, it is becoming increasingly important to develop animal health breakthroughs from within our own laboratories.
We are uniquely positioned at MSD Animal Health to follow this paradigm. We have close connections with MSD Research Laboratories, our parent company’s research group. We have a strong external research collaboration network with partners across the globe. And MSD Animal Health heavily invests in its own large scale, in-house drug discovery organization. This strategy makes our company an exhilarating place to work for scientists interested in cutting edge discovery sciences.
I am proud to be part of a global animal health company that is defying industry trends and sustaining focus on livestock R&D. Every day, I get to work with talented scientists empowered to explore the profound connection between human and animal health. This mission illustrates our determination to translate our work from the laboratory to the farm in pursuit of animal well-being and in turn improve the well-being and success of those who care for these animals and ultimately the world who relies on their outputs.