2 Big Veterinary Pharmacies Merge

For years now, I’ve written about my concerns with veterinary consolidation. And, now this. Two of the biggest providers of online veterinary pharmacy services plan to merge. I don’t think that’s good news for pet lovers or for veterinary hospitals. Full disclosure: I wrote for one of the companies (MWI) for a long, long time (until their new, back then, global corporate overlords gave me the boot).

The official announcement looks like this. “Cencora (NYSE: COR) and Covetrus, a global animal health technology and services company, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Covetrus and MWI Animal Health (MWI) will merge, creating a combined company offering a comprehensive animal health platform.”

The announcement also says the merger will … make animal care more accessible and affordable.

That’s Where I Quibble

When one much-bigger company is the provider for access to pet meds to more people, I’m sure there are economies of scale. I’m just not sure those savings will be passed onto us. Monopolies tend not to work that way throughout history. I honestly wonder (and worry) if eventually there will be just one colossal company running everything in the pet-vet space.

And, Hospitals Handcuffed

You should know that the companies do more than provide online veterinary pharmacy access to veterinary practices so that you can order directly from your own veterinary hospital. It’s really a combination of technologies and purchasing access for veterinary hospitals to get the stuff they need and to manage all the information they need to manage and integrate.

Once these technology platforms and services become so huge, it’s almost impossible for veterinary hospitals to switch. The hassle and cost and staff time required to ditch one platform for another is just too great. It’s a bit like not being able to switch pet insurance companies.

Industry Trend Watcher

I learned about the merger from The Fountain Report, an email newsletter I get. One of their leaders referred to this news like this: “Cencora’s decision to merge MWI Animal Health with private equity backed
Covetrus marks one of the most consequential restructurings in animal health distribution in the past decade…”

The merger also puts much more pressure on the smaller, privately owned veterinary practices. That can’t be good — from where I sit.

I Guess We’ll See

So, I guess we will see how this plays out. My own veterinary clinic, which is owned by one of the huge corporations, switched to a new online pharmacy about 5 months ago … and away from Covetrus. Makes me wonder what they know that we don’t.

It was kind of a hassle to switch over our pet meds autoships at the time, but I think it’s all working now.