Scrooge

Well the Pfizer Brussels press event turned out to be a ball, and I ended up in the Grand Place with a journalist from the UK's Farmers Guardian at a bar called the coffin. We had to walk down a dark passageway to get to the bar, and inside there were actual coffins used as tables. Very louche.

It has been a week of endings and new beginnings at Pfizer. When I got back from Brussels I had a call from Pfizer PR veteran Bob Fauteux – announcing that he was retiring from his post at the head of the communications department in New York.

Mr Fauteux has been a regular caller into the office for as long as anyone here can remember. Bob's attention to detail was legendary, and he will be greatly missed by all of us in London and New York.

Apart from that bombshell, we have been going a bit mad getting an issue ready for the new year. Our press deadline is January 2nd for issue 604, so we've pulled out all the stoppers to get everything arranged and in its proper place - as I'm sure most of you can't wait for the festive period to be over so you can go back to work and get stuck into the latest issue of Animal Pharm.

Despite most of the staff here calling me Scrooge, I've decided not to mention Christmas this year, so I'm afraid there'll be no snow-covered Animal Pharm banner, and you won't find any pictures of bells and holly.

I'm personally sick of being bombarded with the unsavory shopping-fest that Consumas has turned into, and I'm certain that our unfestive policy will not detract from your enjoyment of our publication. So, I'm afraid no Christmas greetings from the Animal Pharm team this year. (BTW my rancor might have something to do with the fact that my birthday is on December 25th, but this is neither the time nor the place to go into that ...)

Despite all this, I'd like to say thankyou to those who have sent in Christmas cards, we do appreciate your gesture and have hung them up over the Animal Pharm desk.

Benjamin Franklin

I'm off to meet the Pfizer swine team in Brussels for an announcement relating to that sector. I will of course appraise you of any developments in the Animal Pharm daily breaking news alert as soon as I can.

I look forward to meeting Greg Otto and his team, I last met them in New York when Pfizer was announcing the global release of Improvac. They took out for a very memorable meal in a restaurant right overlooking Times Square.

Pfizer is good at choosing interesting restaurants. Back in November I had a very enjoyable couple of days at Pfizer's Paris headquarters for the launch of Convenia. We were taken out to Le Procope, apparently Paris' oldest café. According to a plaque on the wall, Rousseau, Biron, Diderot, Voltaire, and Verlaine cooked up ideas for the French revolution there. Apparently another American was also an habitué - Benjamin Franklin – who's death in 1790 caused the café to go into mourning for three days.

Both of these trips were thanks to Pr man Mike Keeler. I'll let you know what Mr Keeler has organized for this event when I get back.

I'd also like to pay tribute to our new deputy editor Sita Shah, who – as I'm away for our press day (Tuesday) is putting the whole issue to bed in just her third week in the job. Sita is a very experienced journalist from our sister paper in the human health sector _ Scrip, which many of you will know. I wish her the best of luck over the next couple of days …

chimpanzee

Here at Animal Pharm we've all been getting excited about our new blogs – we've been studying the webstats and have come up with some interesting facts. Firstly, which company is it in Brentford, UK, that has been visiting our website … whoever you are, welcome. We've also had visitors from across the US, Tunisia in North Africa, and Sao Paolo, Brazil.

So remember, wherever you're visiting from – we're watching you …. I'll be providing any interesting updates in the next post.

A number of companies have been getting to the point this week in biologicals, with both SPAH and Merial announcing significant launches. We've just received a press release from SPAH that they've made the first ever launch of two new canine vaccines. One for parvovirus with a four-year duration of immunity, and one for leptospirosis. This follows hot on the heels of an announcement by Merial that it has launched a new Recombitek Equine Influenza Virus vaccine in the US.

I recently spent a very enjoyable evening with the friendly people at the UK's Association of Veterinarians in Industry. The meeting included a fascinating presentation from world leading ape expert Ian Redmond (pictured) who explained that we were damaging ape habitats by consuming palm oil.

As a result of the meeting, I'm trying to convince our management team that Animal Pharm should sponsor a chimpanzee.

The AVI meeting finished with a good old knees-up, but as the wine was flowing as freely as the conversation, my memory is a little hazy of how everything actually wound-up. All I know is that I woke up with a headache and a sponsor a chimp form

CandW

There's been tumbleweed blowing around the Animal Pharm desk for much of last week. Our man in the US – Richard Daub – has taken a well-earned Thanksgiving break, Max has gone to Texas like a character in a Country and Western song, and I've been picking up my satchel and heading off to some training courses.

Talking of training courses, we've all been getting our heads down and finding out about Web 2.0 and what we can do with it. Yes, you might find it difficult to believe but Informa is entering the digital age at last, and you our readers can expect a sea change in the way we can provide you with information.

While a lot of these exciting new ideas are still marked with one of those big red CONFIDENTIAL stamps, I hope I'm not being indiscreet if I tell you that we'll be seriously expanding out offering over the next few months. As always, your opinions are at the heart of our planning process, so if there's anything that gets your goat (or that you think's a great idea) please please please put pen to paper and let me know at the usual address – ben.deighton@informa.com.

Also at long last we've got our new deputy editor starting on Monday – Sita Shah. She's come over from our big sister publication Scrip, so Sita's well versed in human health, and she'll be concentrating on getting her head round the way we work in animal health over the next couple of weeks.

And finally welcome to these inaugural posts of the Animal Pharm editor's blog. I'll be using this space to give you the low-down on what's happening here at the Animal Pharm newsroom, and you'll also get an early pointer to any big stories we're working on down here on the Pharm.

The big news last week was Pfizer Animal Health's announcement that it will purchase poultry biotech Embrex for approximately $155m. The deal will bring Pfizer back into the poultry business. The company also officially launched its Porphyromonas Denticanis-Gulae-Salivosa Bacterin vaccine, which aids in preventing canine periodontitis.

The International Federation of Animal Health (IFAH) also made a big announcement last week, stating that Novartis Animal Health chief executive George Gunn has been elected president of the board, succeeding Pedro Lichtinger. The two year term begins this month.

In other product news, Virbac Animal Health has announced that it will launch its new IVERHART MAX "broad spectrum" canine heartworm anthelmintic in the US during the first week of December… IDEXX Laboratories launched its new "IDEXX Learning Center" website (www.idexxlearningcenter.com), which provides instant access to on-demand training courses, web seminars, certification programs, and event registration… The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently granted full marketing and distribution approval to Synbiotics for its Flu Detect avian influenza (AIV) test strip kits… US scientists at Mississippi State University (MSU) are testing Schering-Plough Animal Health (SPAH)-manufactured Aquaflor (florfenicol) for the treatment of columnaris in farm-raised channel catfish.