GREENFIELD — Healthy animals will be key to sustaining the world’s population, says Jeff Simmons.
The CEO of Elanco thinks the development of plant-based proteins — touted lately in a number of fast-food offerings — will play a role in feeding the world. But they will never replace meat in our diets, he says.
Those sentiments are behind the company’s corporate social responsibility network called Elanco’s Healthy Purpose.
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Click here to purchase photos from this gallery“Our goal is to make a case today that animals, and in the same stream — farmers and veterinarians — have an increasing role in some of society’s biggest issues,” Simmons told members of the media and dignitaries at Elanco’s headquarters in Greenfield earlier this week during a gathering to celebrate Elanco Animal Health’s first anniversary as an independent company after spinning off from Eli Lilly and Co.
Those issues include physical, mental and environmental health, he continued.
“We believe animals are the x-factor,” he said. “…I think it’s time for society to discover the power of healthy animals.”
Nutrients that animal protein provide can help equalize the world’s imbalance between obesity and malnourishment, Simmons said.
He added those nutrients also play an important role in cognitive development.
“We believe diets are personal and diets are also unique to everybody,” he said. “But we believe globally — less meat and less milk equals less attention and less intellectual capacity for our world, and we believe we need to play a role.”
Protein sources that don’t require raising animals for slaughter have been gaining attention of late, spawning products like Burger King’s Impossible Whopper and KFC’s Beyond Fried Chicken. Simmons called plant-based proteins like those a fad but said he thinks they’re “part of the solution” and “may be a long-term game-changer in the protein market.” The alternative protein market is still dwarfed by animal proteins, he continued, adding alternatives are highly processed, less nutritious and more expensive.
Simmons pointed to World Wildlife Fund data reporting that humans use resources 1.75 times faster than they can be replenished. While that begs the notion that eating less meat would address that dilemma, Simmons disagrees.
“Animals are uniquely positioned to move us forward in a more sustainable way,” he said. “In fact, we can’t create a more sustainable environment without animals. They do for our planet what we can’t.”
He referred to data from ScienceDirect, a peer-reviewed research platform, which reports 86 percent of livestock feed is made up of what would otherwise be waste. That includes byproducts from human food along with fiber and bio-fuel production.
Simmons also said cattle need less protein than they produce and that more than half of the planet’s agricultural land is not suitable for planting fruits and vegetables but is suitable for grazing animals. Animal waste also aids in crop fertilization, he added.
Elanco has spent much of its first year of independence solidifying its spot in the marketplace. When it spun off from Lilly on Sept. 20, 2018, it offered 62.9 million shares of common stock to the public at $24 a share. The initial public offering raised $1.5 billion, and the price surged as much as 40 percent in the early weeks as investors responded to the company’s strong position in the companion animal sector. On Thursday, the share price was around $27.60.
Last month, Elanco entered into an agreement to acquire Bayer AG’s veterinary medicines division for $7.6 billion. The deal, which is subject to regulator approval, would raise companion animals to almost half of Elanco’s overall business focus and make it the second-largest animal health company in the world.
Pet ownership among millennials is on the rise, Simmons said in his remarks, while also pointing to studies indicating companion animals have positive effects on their owners’ mental health.
The pet ownership sector comes with its challenges, Simmons and another Elanco executive said.
Sarena Lin, executive vice president of Elanco USA, corporate strategy and global marketing, said the veterinary profession is “under threat.” Veterinarians come into the industry with a love for animals, Lin said, but many experience compassion fatigue after being overwhelmed with euthanasia requests from pet owners unable to afford treatment and overcrowded shelters.
Financial distress is another affliction on the veterinary industry, Lin continued, adding many new vets graduate with more than $100,000 in student debt and make 30 percent to 40 percent less than human medical doctors.
Elanco created a program to work with veterinary schools across the country to help recently graduated veterinarians form cohorts of support, Lin said. She said 26 state veterinary associations have adopted the program so far.
“Veterinarians are the link,” Lin said. “They are the caretakers of the animals. If we don’t take care of them, they won’t be able to provide the healthy animals we all need.”
Before the Bayer deal, Elanco also acquired a pet therapeutics company that develops a drug for canine osteoarthritis and a company that specializes in vaccines preventing bacterial diseases in food animals. Elanco signed a development and commercialization agreement with a company for the first FDA conditionally approved canine lymphoma treatment as well.
Simmons recalled how the company has had a presence in Hancock County for 65 years, starting in the distinctive horse stables on the Lilly campus along U.S. 40 on the west side of Greenfield.
As the business grew and became a global company, it established its headquarters on Innovation Way in 2010 and then opened an innovation center filled with laboratories in 2016.
Aaron Schacht, executive vice president for innovation, regulatory and business development, said Elanco’s research and development focuses on how living cells in creatures work, then applies science to try to understand what is causing a disease or problem in an animal and engineer a solution.
“We are really purveyors of biological activity,” he said.
Solutions take on threats to animals like parasites, chronic diseases, infectious diseases and therapeutic concerns and conditions, Schacht said.
The company employs 850 to 900 in Greenfield, according to Elanco spokeswoman Keri McGrath. It has more than 5,800 employees across the globe.
“We’ve enjoyed a long history here in Indiana, through our parent Lilly and now as a stand-alone animal health company,” McGrath told the Daily Reporter in an email. “And we work well with our partners here in Hancock County. We look forward to continuing that relationship.”
