LIFE SCIENCES
Animal Health
World's Most Productive Companies
Biologics, Diagnostics, and Consolidation Reshape Animal Health
Across animal-health manufacturers and diagnostics firms, common threads are visible in their strategies and operating models. They participate in a converging animal-health stack, featuring diversified portfolios that span drugs, vaccines, biologics, and diagnostics. This is combined with data-enabled commercial models and a consolidating clinic channel, as well as supply-chain hardening post-2020. Additionally, they prioritize readiness for zoonoses and continue to offer digital, tele-enabled care that enhances diagnostics and adherence to chronic care.
The period from 2019 to 2024 was marked by pandemic-driven pet-care demand, followed by normalization, clinic consolidation, supply-chain shocks and inflation, breakthroughs in biologics and diagnostics, disease events, notably H5N1 in dairy cattle, persistent veterinary labor constraints, and policy scrutiny of pricing and competition. FX and rates shaped capital and mix. Upward productivity reflected a richer mix and pricing from innovative biologics and diagnostics, better factory yields and dual sourcing after the 2021–2022 shocks, and more efficient, data-driven commercial models tied to consolidators.
2024 was shaped by H5N1 in U.S. dairy cattle, ongoing labor and affordability pressures in clinics, continued consolidation, and policy scrutiny of pricing. Supply reliability improved but remained strategic. Companies that paired innovation with dependable supply and strong channel access outperformed on resilience and share.
Top 100 World's Most Productive Companies - Animal Health
Productivity Snapshot
The Animal Health peer group experienced a similar productivity trend to many other industries: a surge in productivity from 2020 through 2023, followed by a decline in 2024.
- Productivity in the sector increased by 8.8% over the last six years. This Peer Group performed slightly above the average for manufacturers represented in the IPI and had one additional year (2023) of improving performance before returning to stagnation and regression over the last year.
- All these companies had negative productivity growth in 2024.
- 2024 Productivity decreased by an average of 5.13% across these companies.
- Two companies in this peer group earned their position within the LNS Research 2025 World’s Most Productive Companies. Vetoquinol and Zoetis.
- Vetoquinol distinguished itself by growing productivity 2.4 times faster than the average of its peers over the last six years, through decisive shifts to global Essentials, augmenting the portfolio via targeted acquisitions, increasing R&D intensity, and pruning lower-return lines, all while building cash and margins.
- Zoetis also earned a spot in the LNS Research 2025 World's Most Productive Companies. Zoetis' productivity performance improved by over 1.9 times that of the rest of the peer group, driven by integrating scale, investing in innovation capabilities, and maintaining capital discipline in ways that most peers could not replicate.
