Industry partnership offers ACVIM residents free educational resourcesNovember 12, 2024This new collaboration marks the first-ever American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM)-endorsed education initiative tailored to help residents succeed in their chosen specialty.
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Tech tools, continuous learning support practice productivityFebruary 21, 2023Optimizing workflow, incorporating efficient technological tools, and improving talent management are key to increasing practice-level productivity.
IDEXX CEO resigns following spinal cord injuryOctober 25, 2019Jonathan Ayers, president, CEO, and chair of IDEXX Laboratories, is stepping down after suffering a spinal cord injury.
IDEXX CEO on medical leave after cycling accidentJuly 3, 2019Jonathan Ayers, president, CEO, and chair of IDEXX Laboratories, has taken a leave of absence following a serious bicycling accident on June 27.
IDEXX files voluntary dismissal in Vets First Choice lawsuitMay 2, 2019IDEXX Laboratories has dropped a lawsuit against two of its former staff members and Vets First Choice after alleging the employees took confidential material to their new employer. In a joint statement, Covetrus and IDEXX say they agreed to resolve the matter to an amicable resolution. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. (Covetrus is the newly formed company after Vets First Choice merged with Henry Schein.) Last August, IDEXX announced it was taking two former employees and Vets First Choice to court. The lawsuit stated Dan Leach and Agostino Scicchitano did not reveal they resigned from IDEXX to gain employment with Vets First Choice and engaged in alleged "actual and/or threatened misappropriation of trade secrets." Further, it claimed the two employees took private information from company computers when they moved to their new employer. In the statement, Covetrus and IDEXX acknowledge "their respective obligations to their customers and employees to take appropriate measures to safeguard and ensure proper handling of confidential information." IDEXX was seeking unspecified monetary damages, punitive damages, and legal fees. The company's lawyers were also asking for an injunction to block the defendants' "actual or threatened disclosure or utilization of IDEXX's trade secrets."
IDEXX CEO launches wild cat conservation foundationApril 23, 2019IDEXX's chief executive officer, Jonathan Ayers, and his wife, Helaine, have created a foundation to support the funding of global wild cat species conservation initiatives and organizations. "We lionize cats such as jaguars, leopards, and cheetahs in popular culture, yet felid species in the wild are threatened with declining populations and, in time, extinction," Ayers says. "We need to do more to preserve their populations in their natural habitat." "Helaine and I believe in the importance of dedicated species conservation efforts, and we hope our foundation will help to support the vitality of wild cats, their natural habitats, and the professionals dedicated to them in a meaningful way for years to come." The Ayers Wild Cat Conservation Trust will focus on 33 species of small cats, as they currently only receive a small fraction of all wild cat conservation funding. A lot of these wild cats are endangered or vulnerable with declining populations, including the clouded leopard, the black-footed cat, the sand cat, and the fishing cat. Funds will be given to initiatives such as the Panthera Small Cats Program, which the Ayers family helped establish. The program is dedicated to the conservation of the world's 40 wild cat …
IDEXX chief medical officer announces 2019 retirementOctober 10, 2018IDEXX Laboratories Inc. is in the market for a new chief medical officer after Roberta Relford, DVM, MS, PhD, DACVIM, DAVCP, announced her plans for retirement early next year. Dr. Relford, who joined IDEXX in 1996 and has served as its CMO since 2013, is leaving the company to pursue a new opportunity raising and training colts for working ranches across the U.S. "As many of you know, I have a new partner, and he and I are about to begin a fascinating and exciting new chapter in our life together," she said. "We are embarking on a new journey where we will be training colts and traveling the country. "I didn't make this decision lightly," Relford added. "I leave behind the best job and career a person could ask for. At IDEXX, I have been part of setting new and higher standards of care for pets around the world, and I can't imagine a better team with which to do this important work." Relford received her DVM from Auburn University, a master's degree from Mississippi State University, and a PhD in veterinary pathology from Texas A&M University, where she also pursued advanced training in small animal internal medicine. Check …
Kindred Biosciences joins AAEP educational partnersSeptember 4, 2018Kindred Biosciences Inc. has joined the American Association of Equine Practitioners' (AAEP) Educational Partner Program. Educational Partners provide resources and education through the AAEP to equine veterinarians and horse owners to improve animal health and welfare. "KindredBio's partnership with the AAEP brings together two organizations that share a passion for improving equine wellness," said Denise Bevers, co-founder and COO. "Our company is focused on addressing the numerous unmet medical needs that equine veterinarians encounter daily. In addition, many of us at KindredBio are horse owners, so we understand there is no better equine partner than the AAEP." At the upcoming AAEP convention in San Francisco, the company will be the Health and Wellness Initiative sponsor, will underwrite a Sunrise Session, and will have a large presence in the exhibit hall. The company focuses on drug development for cats, dogs, and horses. Equine products in development include a product for control of pyrexia (fever) in horses, which is currently under review by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. The company becomes the 11th equine health corporation in the AAEP's Educational Partnership Program. The 10 other AAEP Educational Partners are Boehringer Ingelheim, Cargill, Dechra Veterinary …
IDEXX Laboratories sues former employees, Vets First ChoiceAugust 8, 2018IDEXX Laboratories, a veterinary diagnostic testing and product manufacturer, is taking two former employees and Vets First Choice, a prescription management company, to court. The company's lawsuit, filed Aug. 3 in U.S. District Court, states that Dan Leach and Agostino Scicchitano did not reveal they resigned from IDEXX to gain employment with Vets First Choice and engaged in alleged "actual and/or threatened misappropriation of trade secrets." The lawsuit claims the pair took confidential materials from company computers when they moved to their new employer. This takes on significance several reasons, not least of all the announcement in April by Vets First Choice and Henry Schein Inc. that Henry Schein would merge its animal health business with Vets First Choice to create Vets First Corp., an independent publicly traded company. A recent analysis by Zack's Investment Research of IDEXX concluded that while IDEXX had been outperforming in its industry, Henry Schein's spin off of its animal health business poses a threat to the company. Since 2017, seven other IDEXX employees had been hired by Vets First Choice, the lawsuit states. "As a result of the aggressive hiring practices that Vets First Choice was utilizing, …
IDEXX offers Catalyst SDMA test to point-of-care customersJanuary 8, 2018IDEXX Laboratories Inc. announced that its Catalyst SDMA test will be commercially available to all North American customers on Jan. 16, enabling IDEXX's point-of-care customers to add SDMA as an essential element of the routine chemistry panel. The Catalyst SDMA test can be added to any chemistry panel on IDEXX's Catalyst One and Catalyst Dx chemistry analyzers as part of the patient sample run, with the full chemistry panel results, including SDMA, available within minutes. The company expects to bring the Catalyst SDMA test to customers beyond the U.S. and Canada over the course of the next several months. Additionally, to further explore SDMA's potential applications to human health, the company has signed a collaboration agreement with Yale University. As part of this partnership, the IDEXX SDMA test was validated for accuracy in measuring SDMA in human blood samples, and the results were presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology last November by Yale and IDEXX researchers. Future research with Yale will focus on the clinical utility of SDMA in human patients using the validated IDEXX SDMA Test. IDEXX first launched the IDEXX SDMA test at its reference laboratories in 2015, and has run …
