As most of you know, it’s quarterly earnings reporting time. I’ll admit I was a little down in the dumps earlier this week after reading a few articles in the Wall Street Journal about companies slow or no growth. How was the 2nd quarter for animal health companies going to turn out, I wondered.
Two weeks ago, Boehringer Ingelheim reported 1H growth of 1% (CC) but Virbac reported 1H growth of 11.3% (CC). Last week, Nestle reported organic growth of 3.8% for its Nestle Purina PetCare business. This week, Merck reported that its animal health business grew 6% (CC) in 2Q (up from 4% in 1Q) with the livestock business growing 11% in the quarter and the companion animal business growing 1%. Also, Cencora’s MWI animal health business reported 6.7% growth over the last three quarters, but only 4% for the last quarter. Finally, Colgate-Palmolive’s Hills Pet Nutrition reported organic growth in 2Q of 6.1% and 1H growth of 5.2%.
IDEXX and Zoetis report next week and Elanco after that, so we will have a better idea of industry growth this year very soon. What is apparent is that there is softness in the companion animal parasiticide segment, which we will comment on after a few more companies report. Even with this softness, it looks like the animal health industry is on a mid-single digit growth trajectory. Again.
Bob Jones
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