Singapore — The animal formula market in the European pet healthcare industry began to spread rapidly around 2012, and is currently forming a stable market structure centered on major countries. High-functioning formulas are being incorporated into veterinarians’ prescription lines in various fields, including strengthening immunity, joint protection, improving liver function, and delaying aging, and are gaining mainstream recognition among pet carers as an “alternative treatment, not medicine.”
In particular, the sophistication of the formula is at the heart of this market. Multinational companies’ products commercialized in each European country have clinically proven their efficacy, but their compounding technology and raw material composition are kept strictly confidential. **The essence of this market is clear. Animal formulas have grown to about seven times larger than the European pet drug market in that they can expect therapeutic effects like pharmaceuticals but have few side effects. However, only six companies in Europe are capable of manufacturing the products, which has extremely enhanced technology leakage prevention and compositional security between companies.
Industry experts classify animal formulas as ‘functional technology located just before drugs’. It is mainly used in the stage before being registered as a veterinary drug, and is characterized by inducing a physiological response, with few side effects, and is safe for long-term use.
Precisely designed to fit the constitution and life cycle of pets, these products form a fixed market through veterinary hospitals, prevention-oriented clinics, and specialized distribution networks in Europe, and some countries tend to reflect related content in public veterinary curriculum.
Information protection surrounding formula mixing technology is becoming more advanced. Major manufacturing countries such as Belgium, Germany, France, and Austria are increasingly legislating industrial espionage warnings and technology leak prevention guidelines for formula companies.
Many companies are known to keep raw material composition information completely private and use separate encryption systems between R&D and production departments. The raw material supplier contract includes provisions such as “no backtracking” and “restrictions on requests for third-party analysis,” and claims for damages worth millions of euros have also been reported in the event of violations.
In a market where technology is private, there is only one criterion for consumers to trust: effectiveness. European consumers no longer choose products based on the name of the raw material. Instead, they start with clinical results, veterinarian recommendations, and data on reactions after administration for many years, and closely examine how the company collected the data and conducted the research. If a company discloses relevant data to the outside world, consumers analyze in detail the number of samples in the report, the presence or absence of controls, the duration of administration, and the level of change in physiological indicators and reflect them in their choices. In other words, the company’s standards and verification systems that design the data rather than the product are at the core of the choice. The brand is trusted based on empirical data such as clinical results, veterinary recommendations, and post-dose responses for many years.
Veterinary nutrition associations and animal clinical associations in each country regularly publish reports on the effectiveness of functional formulas, and some products have been tested with protocols conforming to human medical standards.
In today’s European animal formula market, the ‘creation’ of products is not just a mixture. It is a company’s technological philosophy and a unique technological asset to be protected.
A company’s competitiveness is determined by ‘what kind of reaction was induced’ rather than ‘who used which raw material’ in this market. In fact, some companies are designing formulas based on technologies that have passed the functional substance review under the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and are continuously publishing clinical results in the form of academic papers.
Throughout Europe, animal formulas have already become a daily treatment alternative. But behind it is a tightly protected black box of technology and composition, and a trust-based competitive structure formed within it.
This is not just an industry that makes products, but the most compressed aspect of the European life science ecosystem where technology dominates the market.
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