Bayer Animal Health launches Seresto™ collar in China

Since its first launch in 2011, the long-lasting flea and tick treatment Seresto™ has become Bayer Animal Health´s biggest brand and one of the fastest growing brands in the industry. In 2018, it achieved EUR 270 million in sales with a production record of 13 million collars. Seresto™ is registered in 78 countries and millions of pets have been treated with it worldwide. 

With the market entry in China, another chapter in the success story of Seresto opens. “The launch of our flea and tick collar Seresto™ in China is a great opportunity to advance the potential of our product,” says Michael Wilson, Global Brand Manager Seresto at Bayer Animal Health. “China is a very important market for us and we see great growth potential for Seresto™.” 

Over the last months, the Bayer Animal Health team in China has worked intensively on making the launch successful. More than 500 key veterinary customers accepted the invitation to join external launch meetings in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. “The feedback was consistently positive,” says Christoph Vetten, Head of Greater China for Bayer Animal Health. “We see a huge market that is just beginning to emerge and where the protection of the health and well-being of pets becomes increasingly important.” 

New market data describes an enormous increase in pet ownership and growth of urban populations in China, in particular in the big cities. (1) “According to this new data, dog and cat ownership has significantly increased in line with a growing upper middle class population,” says Vetten.

Bayer Animal Health is a world leader in parasitology and Seresto™ offers a real benefit to pet owners and their pets in the confidence that their dogs and cats are protected for a long time from fleas and ticks wherever they go. “With the launch of Seresto we have a unique opportunity to establish a strong position in the market,” explains Wilson. “Seresto™ represents a major advance in the development of anti-parasitic treatments.” 

In order to help pet owners distinguish counterfeit products from original Seresto™ collars, Bayer Animal Health has implemented CapSeal, a highly sophisticated, interactive safety feature. “Each CapSeal contains a unique QR-code,” explains Wilson. “Once the pet owner has scanned the code with the Bayer CapSeal App, it is checked against a database and the user gets immediate feedback regarding the authenticity of the code and the collar.”

Seresto™ offers indirect protection against the transmission of a broad spectrum of pathogens, thereby reducing the risk of Vector Borne Diseases such as ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, and leishmaniosis, making it the ideal choice for clinicians wanting to provide comprehensive protection. 

About Seresto™
Seresto™ is the result of many years of multidisciplinary research utilizing Bayer´s unique experience and history in veterinary parasiticides and insecticides research and development as well as polymer chemistry and technology knowledge. Seresto™ is available as a collar in two sizes that can be worn by both cats and dogs and has been designed to stay securely in place for an up to eight month period while ensuring safety from strangulation. Seresto™ is unique in including both one of the leading insecticides, imidacloprid and the highly effective acaricide flumethrin. These compounds are embedded in an innovative waterproof, odour-free collar made of a polymer matrix blended with a neutral oil derivative. The collar’s materials ensure that the active ingredients are consistently released over an eight month period at an effective, low dose. 
 
About ticks and fleas
Tick and flea infestations are more than just a nuisance; they also pose a very real threat to both pets and humans as they can transmit serious diseases. These diseases have become more frequently diagnosed and more geographically widespread, increasing both the danger posed to pets and the risk posed to humans. Fleas are the most common ectoparasite in cats and dogs and are capable of spreading and/or causing a number of diseases that affect cats, dogs and humans, including tapeworm, flea allergy dermatitis (FAD), bartonellosis and endemic typhus. Diseases spread by ticks include anaplasmosis, Lyme borreliosis, babesiosis and ehrlichiosis, many of which can cause serious diseases in humans. In dogs, many of these diseases can be lethal and cannot yet be treated, meaning that prevention is key to their management. The most effective disease prevention technique is to stop parasites from biting, removing any possibility of disease transmission. The ability of a treatment to prevent biting is commonly referred to as ‘repellency’ (anti-feeding) – products that offer repellency, like Seresto™, help to reduce the risk of disease transmission. 

(1) Market Intelligence 

About Bayer
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to benefit people by supporting efforts to overcome the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development, and the Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2018, the Group employed around 117,000 people and had sales of 39.6 billion euros. Capital expenditures amounted to 2.6 billion euros, R&D expenses to 5.2 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

To find out more please read at http://animalhealth.bayer.com and http://www.seresto.com.

Forward-Looking Statements 
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.