Peter Verhoeve
“I have been working at Eurovet Animal Health since 1993. To tell you the truth, I landed in the pharmaceutical industry by accident. I remember during my third year at university we were asked who planned to find work in the industry or in research. I thought the people who raised their hands were losers. I thought “Surely you study veterinary medicine to become a practitioner...?” But when an accident rendered me no longer able to work as a practitioner, I chose in the end to work in the industry as a poultry specialist. I have never once regretted this decision.
I work as a Registration and Product Development Project Manager. The work is quite diverse and varies constantly because the Registration department needs to adjust to continuous changes in legislation.
When I started in 1993, I filled files for the most part with literature and performed tolerance and residue studies. At the time, an expensive file would have cost one hundred thousand guilders. In addition to those clinical efficacy trials I now first have to perform studies per pathogen to determine the correct dose, then have them confirmed in special studies and then check them again under field conditions. Environmental toxicity has also become an important - and very expensive – issue. These days a complete file easily costs from half a million to a million euros. This is why we can no longer afford to focus solely on our domestic markets (the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany). National applications have been replaced by European procedures, something that has allowed us to conduct business in 25 different European countries.
Because I am involved in every stage of a project from the concept to the final registration, I am in contact with every department within the company: the development laboratory, Production department, Commercial department and the Board of Directors (in its capacity as the principal). I also deal with a number of external consultative structures, patent offices, law experts, European governments and both national and international research agencies. At Eurovet I have the freedom to determine the correct strategy along with my project staff. That is what makes my work particularly interesting.
Practitioners don’t often notice the changes in legislation regarding veterinary medicine registration. Eurovet strives for maximal involvement with various European consultative structures in order to be able to influence that legislation. This involvement also means we are quicker to take advantage of the opportunities that new legislation offers (we sometimes even generate our own jurisprudence). Even though we are a relatively small company, this stands us in good stead to get the maximum return from a small pool of highly motivated staff, to be successful and survive in a competitive market."