Our objectives are to innovate, develop, register, manufacture, sell and market high quality products to the veterinary profession worldwide. We also offer high levels of service, technical support and educational training to promote the Dechra brand and to develop a strong relationship with, and be recognised as an important partner to, veterinarians.

Our Key Resources and Relationships

Values

Our culture and Values are important and have helped drive the Group's success.

Our People

Our people strategy underpins everything we do in the business. We have a well defined plan to build talent, develop people and strengthen the Dechra culture.

Relationships and Partnerships

Our sales approach revolves around partnerships with key practice groups, individual veterinarians, key opinion leaders and distributors. The relationship with our supply chain partners is also important to establish continuity of supply.

Financial Resources

Our strong cash generation allows us to pay down debt quickly, resulting in a strong balance sheet which allows us to fund internally the majority of our strategic opportunities.

Technology

We are implementing a strong technology platform to enable us to operate efficiently. We also offer CPD training via our e-learning system to veterinarians and veterinary nurses.

Read Corporate Social Responsibility

Strategic Enablers

Technology

People

Manufacturing and Supply Chain

Read Delivering Our Strategy

Innovation, Development and Registration

Product Development Portfolio

Novel Entities

Generics

Differentiated Generics

Lifecycle Management

Read more about our Product Development

Product development ideas are generated in numerous ways, including:

  • regular cross functional meetings where all senior staff are encouraged to bring new ideas from their experience in the marketplace;
  • networking with key opinion leaders, especially in our focus therapeutic areas, to identify and develop ideas; and
  • employing talented veterinary scientists who extensively screen scientific papers looking for new technologies that might have an application in our marketplace.

In addition, our profile gives us exposure to human pharmaceutical and biotech companies that are developing technologies, usually for human medicine, but often with a veterinary application. We spread our development portfolio across novel entities, differentiated generics, generics and lifecycle management projects across multiple species.

Our formulation and development laboratories are located at our manufacturing sites which allows manufacturing and product development to work closely together to scale up to commercial production, which is a key expertise for in-house product development. After opportunities have been identified we have an evaluation phase where we assess opportunities and ideas to determine whether we can technically manufacture the product and whether it is commercially viable to do so. Once a product has been classed as suitable for development it will be allocated to an internal development team who will be responsible for taking the product all the way through feasibility, research and development to regulatory submission. Once all the studies are concluded, if the product reaches the required safety, efficacy and stable chemical criteria, regulatory dossiers are prepared for registration and filing with the relevant regulatory authorities.

Read more about our Pipeline Delivery Case Study

Manufacturing

Range of competencies

Tablets and Capsules

Creams

Liquids

Ointments

Powders

Vaccines

Sterile Injections

Manufacturing is a key competency of the Group; the prime objective is to deliver safe, efficacious, cost-effective, quality products. Veterinary products come in many dosage forms, and often, batch runs for veterinary medicines are relatively small compared to human production; therefore outsourcing can prove difficult and expensive. We have a wide range of competencies across our seven sites including tablets, creams, liquids, ointments, powders, vaccines and sterile injections that can be packed in a multitude of different presentations.

We do however outsource approximately 50% of our products. There are numerous active pharmaceutical ingredient types and dosage forms that we are unable to manufacture in-house and we also have numerous historical long term supply agreements with contract manufacturing organisations (CMO) which have been evolved due to historic agreements with businesses we have acquired. Therefore our CMO network is an important part of our business.

Supply Chain

Veterinary distributors & wholesalers

Our products are distributed to wholesalers and distributors through two major logistics sites. Our European and International markets are serviced from our own logistics facility based in Uldum, Denmark, and North America is supplied out of a third party logistics supplier in Kentucky. The principal objective is to deliver a customer's order on time and in full every time.

The majority of veterinary practices are supplied through specialised veterinary distribution companies that operate as one-stop shops. They stock the majority of items veterinary practices need and offer high levels of service, often with a next day delivery. These distributors, on the whole, are not proactive in selling product; they predominantly supply to demand where the demand is driven by Dechra's own sales activities within veterinary practices. There are a few markets where we offer direct supply, such as Germany and the Netherlands that are not fully supported by veterinary distributors or where legislation enforces all pharmaceuticals to be sold through pharmacies, such as Denmark, Italy, Norway and Sweden.

Our Customers

Veterinary practices & professional farming units

Veterinary professionals

All of our products and sales and marketing activities are targeted at veterinary professionals. The majority of veterinarians prescribe and dispense the drugs, although there are a few territories in the world where the veterinarian writes a prescription and the drugs are purchased by the animal owner at a pharmacy.

The majority of our products are POMs, however we have a range of complementary non-prescription products. Our product range includes both novel and generic products in key therapeutic areas, in particular endocrinology, and anaesthesia and analgesia.

Sales and Marketing

Generating Demand for our Customers

Telephone sales representatives

Field based representatives

Educational programmes

Technical support helplines

Dechra operates its own sales force and provides in-house marketing and technical support in 25 countries, predominantly in Europe and North America. In almost all these countries we have highly skilled field based representatives who make regular calls with all major veterinary practices. The representatives’ brief is to sell the product on a technical basis, outlining the beneficial aspects of our products and to provide educational support on how best to treat animals in our key therapeutic areas. We also provide high levels of technical support and pharmacovigilance through helplines in every country in which we operate. These helplines provide veterinarians with support on how best to use our products and with free advice on any difficult or complex cases that may be encountered.

The relationship with veterinarians is key and, to this end, we provide added value services. We offer high level educational programmes focused on the treatment of conditions in our key therapeutic areas. We deliver this education through many channels, including major conferences, regional groups, individual practices and increasingly through digital channels.

These programmes are certified to offer veterinarians and veterinary nurses the continuing professional education hours they require to maintain their professional qualification.