a new era

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No one from Bayer seems to get it, veterinarians are what made Advantage Successful, i.e. paying your salaries, now its everywhere, over time it will be missused more and more and be another Hartz, the top execs at Bayer made a quick profit but in the long run will cause all the Bayer reps to lose their jobs. I refuse to carry any Bayer product and know Webster will not sell bayer. Bayer will NEVER make another penny off of me, its no ones fault but their own. If Bayer wanted Advantage OTC let it be diverted through the Vets they deserve a little profit. What happen to looking out for your true customers.
 






It has come to my attention that Vetsource has just signed a deal to provide the pharmacy filling for WagRx/Amazon.com

How do I get manufacturer contracts to buy direct and 10-20% under vet list costs and then turn around to sell to Amazon.com and it's owned entities?

Good job Bayer


The dynamics of Bayer
 






And the dynamics continue.......
It has come to my attention that Vetsource has just signed a deal to provide the pharmacy filling for WagRx/Amazon.com

How do I get manufacturer contracts to buy direct and 10-20% under vet list costs and then turn around to sell to Amazon.com and it's owned entities?

Good job Bayer

Did we expect anything less?
 
















































What are we supposed to be telling our Vet accounts right now? I feel like we are just out here not even doing damage control rather just hoping something will change the climate.
 






Anonymous said:
What are we supposed to be telling our Vet accounts right now? I feel like we are just out here not even doing damage control rather just hoping something will change the climate.
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What damage control can you do? Bayer sold us out. I use a bit of Profender and Drontal in my hospital, no other Bayer products. I've asked the Bayer rep not to return. To me, Bayer = Hartz. We are successfully weaning all our clients to Revolution (cats) and Comfortis/Trifexis (dogs).

Not saying I wouldn't do the same in Bayer's situation, they obviously decided they'd make more money taking the entire product line OTC than staying with the veterinary market. Time will tell if it was a wise move or if they Netflixed themselves.
 












Agreed. Pretty cool that we can see how our Legacy came to be over the past 12 months. The first post was almost axactly one year ago. I wonder what the next "era" will bring?
 






Anonymous said:
this is taken from a recent posting on the Merial board.....

Originally Posted by Anonymous
I'm a veterinarian and in my more than 30 years in practice I have watched the flea control market evolve. Most of my clients use Frontline Plus, and most of those purchase it from me. But that is changing and is getting ready to turn upside down. I can compete with the pet stores, they charge $20 per dose. We price ours a little below PetMeds both in hospital and through our web store. Costco is problematic, they are satisfied with a 4% margin, difficult to compete with that. But most clients understand that we can't compete with Costco. The real nail in the coffin will be a generic equivalent available in stores at a lower cost than I can purchase the brand name from the manufacturer.

Unlike some of my colleagues I don't blame Merial. As long as it isn't illegal, EPA products are going to go otc. No way to stop it. No amount of tracking will stop it. It's the nature of the beast. It doesn't really matter to me if it is diverted or sold directly to the store. The effect on my practice is the same. The only company that has been disingenuous about it was Bayer. I called them a few weeks before they went public about selling their products direct to the pet stores and was told it was to "get a handle on the diversion problem." That's like screwing someone to get a handle on the pregnancy problem.

In the short term I think veterinarians need to stick with FDA products and let the pet stores fight over the EPA market. Would I be interested in yet another EPA product like Vectra? No thanks. Reminds me of Hill's who has brought out several "veterinary exclusive" wellness pet foods. If sales don't boom they discontinue it, if we successfully build a market for the product they take it otc and sell it to pet stores at a price not available to veterinarians. I'm not interested in playing that game.

Ultimately I think dispensing will be taken away from veterinarians altogether. I remember when many MD's had their own little pharmacy in their office, one stop shopping. The auto shop that did state inspections also did the repairs. No more, gone because of the perceived conflict of interest. Reminds me of a comment made to me by a retiring veterinarian on my first day on the job, only half in jest, "If you don't have the drugs to treat what you've diagnosed, diagnose something you do have the drugs to treat."
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This person must have a crystal ball. Nice call!
 












Anonymous said:
This person must have a crystal ball. Nice call!
Click to expand...

Thanks. A little followup, 1/1/2012-7/31/2012 our inhouse sales of flea products breaks down as follows:

55% Comfortis/Trifexis
45% Frontline Plus

I'm surprised at how quickly Comfortis/Trifexis has become our #1 flea product. We will continue to stick with FDA products as our mainstay, will carry a little of the EPA products for client convenience at a below Petmeds prices.
 






Interesting. But not really. Multi is soooo incredibly down at our clinic this year that we have decided to stop stocking it altogether. And if we want to match the pet retailers price on Advantage and K9 we literally only will make 1-3$ per card sold. Does not make sense cash flow wise to stock anymore
 






We too are shocked at how easy it was to stop carrying ANY of the Advantage family of products. We are slowly scaling back on Frontline as well. We to will be focusing on FDA products and definitely will not be supporting any brand that has an direct otc presence. The killer for Bayer and Vets is that Bayer sells its products to otc channels at a better price than to us Vets!!
BTW, this thread has kept me occupied reading for the past 30 mins....
 






now we are discontinuing Rescue just like we dropped the dog food line a few years back? Why do we even pretend to be a friend to the Vet business? Dan P, you should really answer this one.
 






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