Zoetis Buying Abbott Animal HealthNovember 17, 2014Veterinary pharmaceutical giant Zoetis Inc. has agreed to purchase Abbott Animal Health for $255 million, giving Zoetis such products as the AlphaTrak blood glucose monitoring system, the anesthesia drug PropoFlo and the feline pain reliever Simbadol. The transaction, announced today, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015. Zoetis is the world’s largest animal health company, with 2013 revenue of $4.6 billion. Abbott Animal Health is minuscule by comparison, with annual revenue of about $80 million, a spokesman said. “The addition of Abbott Animal Health assets is an excellent complement to the Zoetis companion animal business and addresses the challenges our customers face today in effectively raising and caring for animals that are living longer and receiving more intensive medical and surgical treatment,” said Zoetis CEO Juan Ramón Alaix. Abbott’s strength is in the veterinary surgical suite, while Zoetis has focused on vaccines and medications for pets and livestock. “This acquisition strengthens our pain portfolio and our diagnostics business so we can deliver more customized solutions to veterinarians,” Alaix said. Abbott Animal Health, a division of the global health care company Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Ill., does business in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, …
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Midwestern, Lincoln Granted Provisional AccreditationNovember 14, 2014The Midwestern and Lincoln Memorial veterinary colleges, which opened this past August, have cleared a major accreditation hurdle by earning provisional status from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Education. Full accreditation could come when the inaugural classes graduate in 2018. The two colleges started their accreditation journeys when the Council on Education issued letters of reasonable assurance before the first students arrived. Comprehensive site visits next fall will help determine whether they are meeting a host of standards necessary for full accreditation. Kathleen H. Goeppinger, Ph.D., Midwestern University’s president and CEO, credited the Glendale, Ariz., college’s entire team for the provisional accreditation. “[They have] done an excellent job developing the programs and curriculum for our veterinary students,” Goeppinger said. “The AVMA has extremely high standards as an accrediting group, and we are pleased that we have met them consistently throughout the entire process.” Midwestern has gone on a $180 million spending spree to accommodate its 102 first-year veterinary students and subsequent classes. A 78,000-square-foot academic building and large and small animal hospitals are either open or under construction. Lincoln Memorial University started with 95 veterinary students on its Harrogate, Tenn., campus.
Antech Offers Image-Sharing DiagnosticsNovember 14, 2014Veterinarians submitting biopsy samples to Antech Diagnostics are now able to examine what the pathologist sees and even show the images to the pet owner. The new digital service, called MAGNIFYdp, also allows an Antech anatomic pathologist to quickly ask a colleague at another laboratory to assist with a diagnosis. Mary Kurian, Antech Diagnostics’ vice president of North American operations, called the technology “a revolutionary change in the practice of veterinary pathology.” “We provide our clients with the means to review what our pathologists see when achieving a diagnosis,” Kurian said. “Further, we allow them the unique advantage of communicating visually with pet owners about their pet’s diagnosis.” MAGNIFYdp produces digitized whole slide images that a pathologist can view on a high-resolution monitor instead of looking at tissue through a traditional binocular microscope, the company announced this week. The technology includes a “Snippet” function that allows veterinarians to view and navigate diagnostic portions of the digitized scanned tissue using their Antech Online account. “There is a direct link from the online pathology report to the Snippets,” said Philippe Labelle, DVM, Dipl. ACVP, an Antech Diagnostics anatomic pathologist. “There is no need for special equipment or software. The link …
Tufts Moves to VMCAS for Student ApplicationsNovember 13, 2014And then there were two. The Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine has joined the Veterinary Medical College Application Service (VMCAS), which allows prospective DVM students to apply to multiple schools at once. The decision, announced today by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges, which administers VMCAS, leaves Texas A&M and Tuskegee universities as the lone holdouts among U.S. schools. Texas A&M uses the Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service, while Tuskegee processes applications in-house. Tuskegee is moving closer to using VMCAS, said the school’s interim dean, Ruby Perry, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVR. An AAVMC representative is scheduled to visit Tuskegee in December “so that we will be a part of the VMCAS application process that will benefit our potential students,” Dr. Perry said. Texas A&M has no plans to abandon the statewide application service, said Kenita S. Rogers, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, the associate dean for professional programs. The College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences would use VMCAS, she said, “except for some unique circumstances,” including a limit of 10 out-of-state students in each 132-student class. “This is a much lower number, both relative and absolute, than other veterinary colleges,” Dr. Rogers said. “As such, receiving several hundred additional …
Penn Vet Working Dog Center Celebrates Graduate ‘Firsts’November 13, 2014Penn Vet Working Dog Center recently celebrated the graduation of its first diabetes alert dog, narcotics detection dog and urban search and rescue dog. The center, part of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, opened on Sept. 11, 2012 as a research and educational facility dedicated to help train scent-detection dogs for public safety and health. Dogs in the program are named in honor of individuals who lost their lives on 9/11 and canine heroes who served following the attacks. The graduates—Bretagne, a two-year-old Golden Retriever; Morgan, a two-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever, and Thunder, a two-year-old chocolate Labrador Retriever—were all members of the center’s inaugural class of puppies in September 2012. “Throughout their training, Bretagne, Morgan and Thunder consistently surpassed our highest expectations,” said Cindy Otto, DVM, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVECC, Dipl. ACVSMR, executive director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center. “We are incredibly proud of these dogs and wish them well in their new partnerships. It will be extremely rewarding to see them thrive in their careers as they put their scent-detection skills to work in order to save lives.” As a diabetes alert dog, Bretagne will alert her owner, Wayne Mowry of Bloomingdale, N.J., when …
WVC Launches Speaker Training ProgramNovember 13, 2014Western Veterinary Conference, taking a page from the communications training organization Toastmasters International, will offer a public speaking course in February. The three-day class will take place at the Oquendo Center in Las Vegas, just a few miles from the WVC convention at Mandalay Bay. The course will run Feb. 14 to 16 and will allow conference speakers and others—up to 30 people—to hone their skills. The annual veterinary conference is set for Feb. 15 to 19. “The Speaker Enhancement Series is beneficial to present and potential speakers in the veterinary industry because it focuses on training professionals to become better, more effective communicators,” said David Little, CEO of Western Veterinary Conference. “We want … speakers new to the circuit to learn and grow.” The course, titled “How to Engage an Audience, Rather Than Give a Talk,” will focus on effective communication techniques and end with critiqued individual presentations. Among the instructors are Steve Fox, DVM, MS, MBA, Ph.D.; Michael Kowaleski, DVM, Dipl. ACVS; and Paul Mitchell, DVM, Dipl. AVDC. The course also will be offered at other times throughout 2015. Registration is available at wvc.org/special-programs.
AVMA Releases Animal Ebola AdviceNovember 13, 2014The odds of a dog or cat contracting or spreading Ebola virus are slim to none, but the American Veterinary Medical Association is taking no chances. The organization this week released guidelines advising how veterinarians and public health officials should assess and possibly quarantine an animal that had contact with someone who is or may be infected with Ebola. The documents outline everything from finding a caretaker for a person’s pet to step-by-step instructions for keeping an animal in lockdown for 21 days or more. If a pet somehow becomes infected with Ebola virus, the guidelines recommend euthanizing and incinerating the animal. The guidelines were prepared by the AVMA Ebola Companion Animal Response Plan Working Group and are available on the members-only page at AVMA.org. The panel, made up of public health agencies and other experts, was chaired by Casey Barton Behravesh, MS, DVM, DrPH, Dipl. ACVPM, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Work on the guidelines began in October, when human Ebola cases emerged in Spain and the United States. A Spanish patient’s dog was quickly euthanized—unnecessarily, critics said—while a Texas dog was quarantined for 21 days and released after showing no …
U.K. Vet Industry Sees Historic ChangesNovember 12, 2014Originally published in the November 2014 issue of Veterinary Practice News The 44-year-old veterinarian examining a canine patient inside a small animal practice puts in 44 hours a week, consults a smartphone or tablet computer while on the job, and receives at least four weeks of paid time off a year. That practitioner is the typical veterinarian employed in the United Kingdom and is most likely a woman, according to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The organization’s 2014 Survey of the Veterinary Profession documented a number of trends bubbling up in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Among them: Women are becoming the face of the profession, and practitioners as a group spend 77 percent of their time focused on small animals, mainly cats and dogs, up from 72 percent in 2010. “It is no surprise to see an increasingly female profession, given the student gender ratios and the higher numbers of older male vets, meaning a greater proportion of retiring vets are male,” said Robin Hargreaves, BVSc, MRCVS, senior vice president and past president of the British Veterinary Association. As more U.K. veterinarians devote themselves to small animal medicine, less time is …
Florida Vets, Dentist Fix Cat’s Palate InjuryNovember 12, 2014A cat is eating normally again after University of Florida doctors installed a metal prosthesis to close a hole in his palate. The procedure is commonly performed in people to correct cleft palates or repair cancer damage, but it was the first time for the University of Florida Small Animal Hospital. “Usually, medical procedures are first tried in animals, and then, when successful, used in human patients,” said Fong Wong, an associate professor in the College of Dentistry, who conducted the surgery. “In this case, it was the animal that benefited from a procedure that is routine in humans but has not been part of routine veterinary medicine.” The Siamese-mix cat, Darryl, already had a large hole between his oral and nasal cavities when he arrived at an Alachua County animal shelter. The condition make him unfit for adoption, so he went home with Julie Levy, DVM, Ph.D., a professor of shelter medicine at the University of Florida. “Every bite of food he took was painful, and he had constant nasal infections,” Dr. Levy said. “Despite struggling to eat and being extremely messy with his food, he was always affectionate.” Transferred to the Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Program, Darryl …
Multiple Animal Drugs on Aratana’s RadarNovember 12, 2014Aratana Therapeutics Inc. is losing millions of dollars a month, but the Kansas City, Kan., veterinary drug developer is confident that products being studied for the treatment of everything from osteoarthritis pain to B-cell lymphoma have the company headed in the right direction. Four-year-old Aratana this week reported net losses of $10.1 million in the third quarter and $28.6 million over nine months—numbers significantly higher than in the same periods of 2013. But with more than $108 million in the bank, partly due to a $44.8 million stock sale in September, CEO and President Steven St. Peter, MD, MBA, is looking forward. “We believe that Aratana is the partner of choice among the pet biotechs, and we are open for business with the right programs and partners,” St. Peter said during an investor conference call. One partnership is with Novartis Animal Health of Greensboro, N.C., which acquired the U.S. and Canadian marketing rights to AT-004, a code name for Aratana’s canine B-cell lymphoma treatment. Aratana holds a conditional license for AT-004 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and expects full licensure by year’s end. AT-004 accounted for nearly all of Aratana’s third-quarter revenue—$43,000—through license and collaboration fees. Already …
