Agrochemicals industry origins

Animal health is a segment of the life sciences industry at the interface of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. Global sales were 15 billion in 2005 ( 14.5 billion in 2004, 13.8 billion in 2001, inflation-adjusted). Of the top 10 companies, 9 are business units or spinoffs from pharmaceutical companies (see Table 11.9). The industry is rather concentrated, with the top 10 companies accounting for 75% of total sales. As they do in pharma, US companies dominate in animal health products. Many of the veterinary products in the portfolios had originally been developed for human use or as pesticides. In the pet (respectively companion animal) segment, which comprises cats, dogs, birds, some rodents, reptiles, and horses and represents about 40% of the total market, the association with human health is particularly prominent. 

Only applied originally in the pharmaceutical industry, automated synthetic methods have spread quickly into the research for new agrochemicals, other speciality chemicals, catalysts and new materials. It is also being used increasingly in process development laboratories coupled with statistical experimental design. 

However, small startup firms have cornered the markets here, while established companies are strugghng to maintain their innovative edge, and the same applies to the chemical industry. Innovations in e-commerce and in biotechnology have started to change the game completely in some chemical businesses, such as agrochemicals, but most of these originate with startups, and not with the big estab-hshed chemical companies. 

Organic substances of anthropogenic origin are found in several enviroiunental compartments. This is due to the use of agrochemicals which may pollute ground and surface waters and the use of household and industrial products which find their way, either unchanged or metabolized, into waste waters and solid wastes and may finally enter the soils in a gaseous, liquid or solid state. 

The most common pollutants of surface waters and groundwater on land are bacteria and other organic matter, hydrocarbons, industrial waste, pesticides and other agrochemicals, and household products. Efforts to limit water pollution centre on the treatment of urban and industrial wastewaters, and unchannelled inflows, such as those of agricultural origin, are more difficult to control. Mention must also be made of marine pollution, oil spills in particular. 

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