Every day our customers and partners face challenges that are wider, more complex and developing faster than ever. Not least how animal health is now so tied to our own.
Today, the science of healthier animals is also the science of food safety and supply, of international public health. It’s the science of keeping people happy by protecting and caring for their family pets.
Meat and dairy consumption for example, is at the heart of changing lifestyles around the globe. As Asian and Latin-American economies continue to flourish, so does the appetite for protein-rich diets. A 50 percent increase in demand for animal protein is expected in the next 10 years. So we must keep developing vital vaccines and pharmaceuticals to help producers fight diseases that devastate production.
We know too that global trade, migrating people and climate change may increase the spread of highly infectious diseases like foot-and-mouth disease, and zoonotic diseases like avian flu. Only a fast, flexible approach to vaccination will stop them. Our vaccines are helping us control the spread of pathogens into our food supplies and communities.
Finally, we will strive to protect and prolong our relationships with the pets at the heart of our families. We’re investing in medicines for age-related diseases – like us, pets are living longer.
Whatever we do to evolve our health platforms in the future, one thing is clear: No business, no government can meet these challenges alone. Today we stand in full knowledge that to succeed we need the joint effort, expertise and insight of all of our stakeholders, customers and partners.
So while our commitment to scientific progress continues, so does our understanding of what that progress means to our customers in the real world. As the people behind the science of healthier animals, we know we must also understand the science of running a business, of feeding a nation, of maintaining healthier populations. As such, we’ll make sure we have the products, technologies, services and insight to tackle our customers’ commercial, operational and governmental demands.
We’ll put every inch of our experience, resources, and pioneering spirit behind them.
We will be driven by their challenges. Their prosperity will be ours.
Richard R. DeLuca Jr.
President, Merck Animal Health