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Group will ride herd on animal health Kansas City Business Journal A group of civic and business leaders is preparing to unleash a three-pronged effort aimed at deepening Kansas City's paw print in the $14.5 billion animal health and nutrition market. Based in Shawnee, Bayer Animal Health jump-started the Kansas City Animal Health and Nutrition Initiative in February, when it donated $100,000 to each of three organizations managing the initiative: the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas City Area Development Council and the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute Inc. That $300,000 in seed money has grown into nearly $1 million in contributions, which will be used to build on the region's dominance in the animal health and nutrition market in three ways:
During a July 18 round-table discussion, chamber President Pete Levi said the organization is researching industry-friendly policies enacted in other regions and states. The chamber probably will recommend that Missouri create and bankroll an organization similar to the Kansas Bioscience Authority, which is expected to invest $580 million in the state's life sciences economy during the next decade, he said. Keith Gary, KCALSI's director of program development, said the organization had used its $100,000 from Bayer to attract $450,000 from the U.S. Department of Labor. That money will be used for grants promoting animal health innovations through collaboration among university and industry researchers, he said. Lynn Parman, KCADC's vice president of life science and technology, said the organization created her position nine months ago to help recruit new life sciences companies to Kansas City. Parman is lending that expertise to the animal health initiative, which already is working with five business prospects interested in expanding in or relocating to the region. "There's a huge recruitment activity ongoing at this moment, and there are many good things to come," Ohle said. The initiative's new advisory board will meet for the first time on Aug. 9, said Ohle, chairman of that group. Other industry leaders who have agreed to serve on the board include Tom Corcoran, president of Fort Dodge Animal Health in Overland Park; George Heidgerken, president of Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. in St. Joseph; Robert Tully of CEVA/Biomune Co. in Lenexa; and a yet-to-be-named representative of Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc. in Topeka. To broaden support for the initiative, organizers are enlisting the leaders of all 111 animal health companies that give this region the largest industry market share in the world, Parman said. "We have a big splash planned" for that event, Ohle said. About the same time, Parman said, the initiative expects to make another splash by releasing a study it has commissioned from Brakke Consulting Inc., a Dallas-based firm serving the animal health industry. In addition to identifying animal health companies ripe for recruitment, Parman said, the report will detail significant animal health and nutrition assets. According to information previously developed by KCALSI, companies in this region account for 26 percent of sales in the $14.5 billion global animal health and nutrition market. Those companies employ more than 5,000 people, including more than 500 researchers, and include 42 firms that have U.S. or global headquarters here. Four of the 10 largest global animal health companies -- Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Fort Dodge and Intervet Inc. -- have U.S. or global headquarters in the region, Parman said. One of the top five animal nutrition companies, Hill's, is in the region, she said. Anne St. Peter, general manager of Fleishman-Hillard Inc.'s Kansas City office and a member of the new animal health advisory board, said Nelson Mann was amazed to learn of the industry's scope in the region after being elected chairman of the Greater Kansas City Chamber two years ago. "He said, 'Dear God, the animal health economy is a hidden treasure, and we need to do something about it,'" St. Peter said. "So he decided, as one of his initiatives as chair of the chamber, to advance Kansas City as the nation's hub for animal health and nutrition." Shortly thereafter, Mann received a godsend, St. Peter said. Ohle was named as president of Bayer Animal Health, moved here from Singapore and was shocked to learn that the community wasn't better promoting the hotbed of animal health activity here, she said. Mann said that activity includes veterinary research going on at five universities within a 300-mile radius of Kansas City and life sciences research at local institutions such as Stowers and the University of Kansas Medical Center. Research and commercialization efforts on the human side frequently lead to new treatments for livestock and companion pets, Mann said. Conversely, he said, animal health research can provide data that lead to new treatments for human afflictions. |
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