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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.
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