Delivering our strategy

Brazil

One of the key strategic goals for Dechra Brazil, currently predominately a FAP business, is to utilise its regulatory, sales and marketing expertise to develop a bigger presence and reputation in the growing companion animal pharmaceutical market through selling some of the key Dechra brands. The decision was made to start this process with Dechra’s lead brand, Vetoryl, which had previously been registered and sold in Brazil, but due to a complex distribution structure had become too expensive for the pet owners and the product was discontinued. The first step was to unravel the distribution arrangements, transfer the Vetoryl files from the previous distributors and resubmit to MAPA (Ministry for Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply) for approval as a Dechra registered and distributed product. After many months of communication with the regulators all four strengths of the product were finally approved in the middle of 2020, a process which takes over two years.

The next steps were to develop and approve packaging and schedule orders with manufacturing. Once the products were ready for shipment, the organisation of the distribution proved a challenge due to the pandemic. The products were finally air freighted from Uldum, Denmark in early March and arrived in Curitiba, the capital of the state of Parana. The products then had to pass through the necessary customs checks and were approved for sale and dispatched on 29 March to the Dechra distribution warehouse in Campinas, just north of Sao Paulo, a further journey of some 475km.

This arrival was perfectly timed with the planned launch programme for April 2021. The sales team, who are predominantly veterinarians, were the first to be introduced to the product and trained on its merits. The next audience was a pre-launch to the key opinion leaders (KOLs), followed by distributor training and then a webinar to veterinarians. These four events, which were online, resulted in the Vetoryl message being communicated to over 30,000 customers, demonstrating the huge interest for the product.

Dechra Brazil is at the forefront of utilising digital tools to support the launch of products, this included a platform to present the disease and product to the veterinarian, a podcast to deliver the messages to the KOLs and other social media and digital mechanisms to communicate case studies and videos. The Vetoryl training modules were made available in Portuguese on the Academy. All these activities have required a huge amount of skill and focus by the team to be able to bring this novel and clinically necessary product to the market. Dechra Brazil will continue to adapt further support tools and services to build their position as the endocrine experts. Newly recruited specialist technical veterinarians will focus on supporting customers and expanding relationships with KOLs, while the marketing team will prepare for the next endocrine product launches of Felimazole and Zycortal later this year. The regulatory team are also busy with further planned submissions of Forthyron and Cosacthen. Looking to the future, a new business model is being created to support and build relationships with pet owners with the sole aim of helping veterinarians provide a service that recognises the importance of quality of life for the pet and how this transmits into quality of life for the pet owner.

Mexico

After the acquisition of Brovel in 2016, Dechra Mexico began to transform the business from a family laboratory focused on generics, to a specialised pharmaceutical business focused on niche, regulated products. Now under the name of Dechra Productos Veterinarios, the company’s presence keeps growing and strengthening, becoming a pure commercial organisation in the 2021 financial year. It has become the fastest growing company in the Mexican animal health market in the last three years according to Kynetec (Animal Health market data).

The management team was tasked with introducing Dechra and our product range to customers. This required a significant amount of time and effort to educate veterinarians and distribution partners on the current product range and new Dechra products to be launched in Mexico. To enhance the company image and increase profitability, the team rationalised 57 low margin and non strategic products so they could focus on Dechra key products. An additional strategy was to optimise the distribution network and strengthening the relationship with strategic business partners (the distribution partners were reduced from 250 to 74). The current distributor partners are engaged and focused on increasing their business with Dechra through our specialised portfolio. Key to sales and profit growth has been the approval of new products. 21 new marketing authorisations have been received from SADER (Mexican Regulatory Authority) throughout the last three years.

In order to raise the awareness of the relevant clinical conditions, educational materials and continuous education programmes are being developed in partnership with KOLs; these are being implemented by the sales force and through congresses and virtual training. Dechra is now recognised for introducing new and specialised products to the Mexican market, some of them to treat under diagnosed diseases and in our key therapeutic area, Endocrinology.