European expansion on the horizon for Animalcare

ANIMALCARE, the York-based supplier of veterinary medicines has been investing heavily in product development as it looks to expand its operations across Europe.

The firm has invested £800,000 this year in product development and regulatory obligations to push forward this pipeline, a 400% increase on previous years.

The firm reported pretax profits of £3.11m to June 30, compared with £2.67m in the same period in 2014.

Though there has been less merger and acquisition activity this year, the firm has solid plans to expand their footprint in Europe, with the appointment of Martin Gore, formerly of Novartis Animal Health’s leadership team in the UK to push their expansion on the mainland.

Animalcare’s sales outside the UK have been broadly constant for several years, averaging 8% of total turnover.

Chief executive of Animalcare Iain Menneer and chief financial officer Chris Brewster spoke to TheBusinessDesk.com about their plans for the future.

Mr Meneer said: We’re very buoyant and we’re in good shape with our financial performance.

“In the last few years we’ve embarked on a programme of growth, starting with the quality and number of people we need to get in the business to grow, as well as implementing a strategy of product development.

“There’s been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to help manage the business as we grow.

“The next step and one of our key strategic themes is to expand across Europe. We’ve not really been where we should be, which is selling pharmaceuticals to Europe.

“There’s a big opportunity for us to do that, and we’ve employed a head of European development, Martin, who is now in post and is starting grow our European footprint into new territories and developing existing ones.

“We have a network of likeminded companies in key territories, such as Germany, France and The Netherlands. We’ve established relationships there to grow existing products, and introduce new ones to the market.

“it’s about putting the right things in place, and moving forward we’re investing a lot in new product development pipeline, we’ve increased investment by 400% to £800k and were projecting that doubles in the next couple of years, and double digit turnover growth as well.”