AgWired

Day two of the Pfizer Animal Health Media Event started out in a serious rain storm. I sure wish we’d had some of this back home.

Here’s most of our group getting ready to board the buses this morning to go to our first stop. We went to the Pfizer Global Manufacturing Site to see where they make products and package, label and crate them up for shipment. This was a big building. I mean big. The main corridor that runs through it is 1/4 mile long for example. Let’s just say we worked up an appetite for lunch.

This building doesn’t have windows and is a very controlled environment as you might imagine. The employees are only allowed to bring a family member in for a couple hours on one evening of the year. The rest of the time it’s tight security. We had to put on gowns, hair nets, safety glasses, booties and for those with mustache/beard, a beard net. And that wasn’t the highest level of contaminations protection for many areas we didn’t get to go into.

The amount of investment in a facility like this is really hard to comprehend until you see the fully automated lines where they take the product and bottle or otherwise package it for shipment. One of the things I was impressed with is how they use the same level of control and safety precautions on all products regardless of whether they’re for human or animal use.

Here’s our group of agricultural journalists at rapt attention today at the Pfizer Animal Health Veterinary Medicine Research and Development facilities. Although we sat in a meeting room most of the day we did get a break to go into a wet lab. Tomorrow its a tour around the farm as described below.

The region’s facilities serve as the global headquarters for Pfizer VMRD and include 2,100 acres of land in Richland, Mich., and a global manufacturing plant in Portage, Mich. The company employs 275 veterinarians in five sites across the globe: Kalamazoo, Mich.; Lincoln, Neb.; Thane, India; Sandwich, United Kingdom; and Melbourne, Australia. In 2006, Pfizer invested nearly $270 million in research and development, which was $90 million more than any other animal health company that year.

“Our Veterinary Medicine Research and Development group is passionate about discovering, developing and enhancing innovative products and programs that create value for our customers,” said Don Sauder, vice president of U.S. Cattle Operations. “Many of our products have revolutionized food animal production, including the recent introduction of extended therapy products, which keep cattle healthier and contribute to beef and dairy producers’ profitability.”

Thanks to Pfizer staff for supplying photos since we couldn’t bring our cameras inside due to security concerns.

Wow. What a day. Talk about getting to know more about a company and their products. That’s what we got to do at Pfizer Animal Health VMRD Headquarters today. Before heading out there we did have our news conference here at Brook Lodge where we’re staying.

The rest of the day involved a lot of presentations and a wet lab experience which I’ll tell you more about later.

I personally think these types of events are a very positive experience for both us as ag journalists and for companies like Pfizer who hold them. We learned more today than probably 10 trade show booth visits. There are a lot of people to thank but I’ll start with Raegan Weber at Pfizer Animal Health and Kenna Rathai at Martin Williams.

I’ll get more into what we learned soon but I just have to tell you how beautiful this place is. I want to stay for about a week.

I know there’s a lot of history to it which I’d like to have the time to learn. We had a great outside dinner outside the Doctor’s Cottage pictured here. Here’s what the website says about the place. “The historical evolution of the estate is a remarkable story as its origins date back to Dr. W. E. Upjohn, founder of the Upjohn Company. Dr. Will, as he was known, bought a forty-acre farm in 1895. One of the original buildings on the property was a creamery, which he soon converted to a summer cottage for himself and his family.”