WHEN Australian veterinary surgeon Dr John O’Brien acquired Jurox in 1992, the scene was set for the development of Australia’s largest independent veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturer.
Jurox began with an established equine portfolio and has since grown through the acquisition and development of products from Pitman-Moore, Glaxo SmithKline and Pfizer. Expanding its portfolio across Australia and New Zealand, Jurox now has its sights set on replicating its Australian success in the United Kingdom and United States.
With global headquarters in Rutherford, New South Wales, Jurox is situated in Australia’s Hunter Valley, a region known for some of Australia’s nest wines and thoroughbred breeders. The family-owned company currently markets in excess of 120 proprietary animal health products and employs over 140 staff in Australia and New Zealand.
Jurox products are now being sold across Asia, the Middle East, Europe (including the UK) and North America and the family maintains its commitment to invest 15% of sales to research and development.
Heading up the UK subsidiary based in Malvern, Worcestershire, Chris Kingdon, the sales and marketing manager, says, “I think any company the size of Jurox is not just looking at developing its own products, but also has a firm eye on growth through acquisition.
“With the current state of consolidation in the animal health industry it gives companies like us an opportunity to provide a more ‘personalised approach’ to supporting the market with its products. Many smaller companies are gaining on the bigger companies as they can apply more individual focus to a smaller range of products.
“Our focus now is certainly on ‘best practice anaesthesia’. Other companies may be talking about anaesthesia but they can be limited by the amount of time they can dedicate to a customer with such a broad portfolio across several therapeutic areas.” Jurox currently markets Alfaxan (alfaxalone 10 mg/ml), an anaesthetic registered for use in cats and dogs. Whilst being the only product it markets in the UK, the product remains the company’s flagship product.
Alfaxan is a great example of how smaller pharmaceutical companies can succeed in innovation.
Developed by Jurox in the late 90s and launched in 2000, it is now the most widely used anaesthetic induction agent in cats and dogs in Australia, with 52% of dogs and 74% of cats being anaesthetised with it.
“It’s not often you have a product with the versatility of Alfaxan backed up by such a wide safety margin,” says veterinary services manager Rich Irvine, who graduated as a veterinary surgeon in Sydney in 2004.
Alfaxan was launched in the UK in 2007, originally via third-party distribution. In 2012, Jurox re-launched it under its own branding and is now heavily focused on supporting vets and nurses with a dedicated team based in the UK. Alfaxan is also licensed in Ireland and in six other European countries.
Rich continues: “This is a very predictable and reliable product and its effects are very repeatable. It produces a characteristic smooth sleep-like induction: a nice calm early form of sedation precedes full anaesthesia.
“It has a very good cardiovascular and respiratory profile. Even though it is acknowledged as a good choice for patients with poor anaesthetic risk, we don’t want to pigeon-hole the product just for sick patients.
“All patients can benefit from its features and we would encourage vets and nurses to become familiar in its use in all anaesthetic categories of dogs and cats. A growing number of practices in the UK are now using it as their sole induction agent.
“Safety studies have shown that 10 times and five times overdoses in dogs and cats respectively have been well tolerated with animals only requiring ventilation to allow recovery with no residual effects; this wide therapeutic safety margin gives users confidence in its use as an anaesthetic agent.”
Active support
Currently Jurox is active in support for veterinary schools and veterinary nursing colleges across the UK.
Whilst veterinarians are in most cases the key decision makers, Chris Kingdon stresses the importance of the role of veterinary nurses in practice: “They are as important as the vet, due to the fact that they are the ones who will be, by and large, monitoring most anaesthetic procedures. They will see the results of injecting that animal with the induction agent and they have to manage whatever happens next. It’s very important that we provide support to vet nurses’ continued education as well.”
Rich Irvine adds, “Where I like to think we are different is that we talk about anaesthesia as a ‘process’. It’s not just a ‘product’. Unless you get each of the phases right, Alfaxan won’t work for you so we are very much concerned with a balanced and multimodal approach to anaesthesia, from admission to pre-medication, induction, transition to volatile agents, maintenance, and on to recovery and discharge – and how to provide the best analgesic protocols.
“Everybody [small animal vets and nurses] does anaesthesia every day but many practices are only doing what they are doing because they have always done it that way,” he says.
“But it’s rare for them to stop and think: ‘Are we doing the best we can?’ And that’s a question we really like to provoke people to think about.” Four out of the 10 people employed by Jurox in the UK are vets or vet nurses and that is a major investment for a
mall company, Mr Kingdon states.
“In previous businesses I have worked for you are lucky to have even one vet. So we have a resource which enables us to give added value to our customers. We have someone on call 24 hours a day, via an 0800 freephone number (0800 5003171).
“All our territory managers have full training and are keen to do what we call ‘Facts and Snacks’ meetings in practices and ‘technical refreshers’. Our vets are also able to offer ‘demo days’ for practices wishing to have support when first using the product.”
But with just one product in the UK, where is the firm heading? “There is a strong intention to grow Jurox in the UK,” says Chris Kingdon, “so watch this space!”
References
- Leyonhjelm, D. (2011) Anaesthesia Market Research. Jurox Pty Ltd, Baron Strategic Services.
- Muir, W. et al. (2009) The cardiorespiratory and anesthetic effects of clinical and supraclinical doses of alfaxalone in cats. Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia 36 (1): 42-54
- Muir, W. et al. (2008) Cardiorespiratory and anesthetic effects of clinical and supraclinical doses of alfaxalone in dogs. Vet Anaesth Analg 35 (6): 451-462.
- Psatha, E. et al. (2011) Clinical efficacy and cardiorespiratory effects of alfaxalone, or diazepam/fentanyl for induction of anaesthesia in dogs that are a poor anaesthetic risk. Vet Anaesth Analg 38 (1): 24-36.
