Looking Ahead: The Brakke Consulting 2024 Animal Health Industry Overview

Have you attended a Brakke Consulting Animal Health Industry Overview yet? Available at major veterinary conferences, it’s our annual review of trends and predictions for the animal health industry. The 2024 overview is packed with details that can help your business thrive in the coming months. Here’s a taste:

Growth in animal health is returning to normal

After a Thoroughbred-like surge during COVID, the animal health industry is returning to a more normal growth rate of 5.9%.[1] The industry remains concentrated, with 61% of that growth coming from just the top 3 companies in animal health: Zoetis, Merck, and Boehringer-Ingelheim. While the parasiticide segment still drives the bus, price increases for veterinary care and expansion in nutritional products and diagnostics also contribute. How long can those price rises continue before consumers balk? What new skills will companies need to hire as they post new animal health jobs?

Pets, prices and pharmacies

In the companion animal market, prices increases from animal health manufacturers are driving much of the growth. Pet owners are embracing online pharmacies and new outlets for veterinary care. More major retailers, from Chewy to Walmart, are opening their own brick and mortar veterinary clinics and changing consumer expectations.  

Companies continue to launch new medicines for pets. Could 2024 be the year when the new monoclonal antibody products show their potential? The Brakke team discusses that and more.

Livestock cycles: bottom of the barrel?

Times remain tougher in the livestock segment. These are hard days for beef and pork producers, with high feed costs, labor shortages, decreased beef production, and such low prices for most pork products that pig farmers lost money on every hog. In the poultry world, HPAI led to the sacrifice of 13 million birds in December 2023 alone.  Still, there is hope that livestock animal health is reaching the bottom of its recent downward trend, and that the outlook might soon improve.

A new category is rising

Although medications and animal feed continue to be pillars of the animal health industry, innovation is thriving. To highlight this, Brakke Consulting is introducing a new category of animal health products into their reporting: Technology. Whether in the pet or livestock segments, technology products are changing animal health, helping farmers make decisions based on individual animal data rather than at herd level, and bringing pet owners closer to their pets and their veterinarians.

Technology products cover areas related to labor, animal behavior, diagnostics and precision farming. While they enhance the industry, they don’t cannibalize existing products. And they carry their own risks, from data security to information overload. How will technology change animal health? What new jobs in animal health will technology companies offer? Stick with us for more on this new and growing category.

Let's talk

For more details on these topics, plus recommendations and predictions for how they can affect your business, and a lively panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges facing the animal health industry in 2024 and beyond, attend the next presentation or request a meeting with the Brakke team.  Be sure to stop by and visit the Animal Health Jobs team at major meetings too; we’re there to answer your questions and help you start your next job or candidate search.

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Whatever the future brings for animal health, we need the right people in the right jobs. The Animal Health Jobs board brings them together. Upload your resume and search for jobs or post your open position. Register for job alerts and subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay on top of the latest jobs and trends in animal health and animal nutrition.

[1] All data from Brakke Consulting 2024 Animal Health Industry Overview unless otherwise noted.