Why is veterinary drug preparation technology valuable?

Echo | 31 August 2021

Translated by HJM by 31 August 2021

Recently, exported products of our company has frequently encountered sampling inspection by veterinary drug regulatory authority of the exported countries. This indicates that not only China but also African countries are keeping strengthening the quality supervision of veterinary drugs in the market. Frequent sampling inspection makes fake and inferior products nowhere to hide.

Surely, we all refuse to buy fake drugs, but what about inferior drugs with attractive prices? Would you buy them if you were a farmer?

Many farmers ever expressed similar viewpoints to their veterinarians: I don’t want the expensive florfenicol soluble powder, you told me that it has a good technology, good water solubility and complete absorption, but in fact, I would rather buy the cheaper one with normal water solubility. Although it has no good technology and its water solubility is not very good or it may not be absorbed well and some drugs will be wasted, I can administer with a larger dose and by this way it’s l still more cost-effective than that florfenicol product with high quality!

This may be one of the most deep-rooted medication concepts of grass-roots farmers for a long time: when they select products and finalize prescriptions, their first consideration is whether the product is expensive or not, then they will figure out how much money will be spent in total. But is it true that “inferior drug in larger dose is equal to good drugs? The real result is that the treatment may possibly enter a strange circle: If the disease is not cured after one course of treatment, then they will start another course of treatment, if the disease is still not cured, then they change to other medicines, in the end, if no any improvement after tried many kinds of medicines, then the farmer will start to seek some “magic medicine” or “special medicines”. In such cases, the disease cannot be cured, many drugs are wasted, and the best treatment time is missed, all these increase the medicines cost, time cost and opportunity cost which are on the contrary of their original willing. When you choose a cheap medicine and prescription, it looks cheap at the beginning, but in the end, you will find the “cheaper choice” actually cost a lost.

In treatment, an opportune moment is very important. Once the best treatment time is missed by using unqualified drugs, the farmer will pay a much higher cost in the end. The correct treatment idea should be: selecting the real qualified medicines to control disease with high efficiency and low cost in the early stage, treatment is prior to cost calculation. If you observe carefully, you can find that real medication experts usually use “good drugs” and “good prescriptions”, rather than reducing the drugs and dose in the prescription, or replacing the expensive drugs with cheap drugs. Because they know once the high-quality drugs are replaced, or worry about gain and loss too much and stray away from the objectiveness or professionalism of treatment, it will reduce the effect of treatment significantly.

In addition, in spite of poor efficacy, inferior drugs also have great hidden dangers to animal safety, because the effective dose of inferior drugs cannot be accurately controlled. Here’s a case we encountered before: A farmer in Shandong province had more than 600 Small Tailed Han sheep. In the first year, he dewormed the flock according to the veterinarian station’s recommendation by using a branded albendazole and dosage, the deworming effect was very good. But in the following year, for the sake of low price, he used another cheaper albendazole to deworm, the effect was not good and he increased the dose, and as a result, more than 150 sheep died of poisoning.

The quality of veterinary drugs concerns not only the effect, but also the lives of animals. Good medicine generally has an immediate effect and can cure disease after administration. Inferior or  fake drugs will not only delay treatment, but also cause certain economic losses, for example, cattle, sheep and donkeys, etc are ruminants, if they are not treated in time, the disease will affect their rumination function and cause secondary digestive system diseases and even death out of acid intoxication.

Now is the era of single API medicine, “good product” is no longer the medicine of “one product cures disease” in the era of large compound products. “Good products” in the new era refer to veterinary drugs with advantages in preparation technology and prescription value. Therefore, the indicator of a good product is that the product has good stability, which can ensure that the animal can receive the best synergistic proportion when administered together with other medicines. For example, the combination of amoxicillin soluble powder and apramycin sulfate soluble powder prepared by 2:1 ratio can ensure the best synergistic proportion and provide the strongest antibacterial effect, it will have a better effect in the treatment of Chicken Colibacillosis, Salmonella than using other amoxicillin soluble powder with poor stability. This is the value of preparation technology, it does not mean that preparation technology can improve the treatment effect to E. coli of single “amoxicillin soluble powder” which is a misunderstanding to the value of preparation technology. With a same prescription, use other amoxicillin soluble powder products without preparation technology or with poor preparation technology to treat the same chicken disease, the effect will be poor or have no effect at all.

Too many clinical lessons tell us: Only considering economic cost, blindly select cheap products without technology or poor technology, and thinking that the veterinary drug preparation technology is not as useful as increasing the dosage of inferior drugs in clinical application, such thoughts is penny wise, pound foolish, and the final result will go against the original expectation.

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