The Animal Health Corridor: Join the pack to break from the herd

When you think of business hot spots, you don’t often think of Kansas or Missouri. But if you’re in the animal health business, there’s no hotter spot than the “animal health corridor” that stretches through the heart of those very states.

The beating heart of Kansas City is animal health, and that heart pumps blood east to Columbia, Missouri, and west to Manhattan, Kansas. On or near that roughly 250-mile stretch of Interstate 70 sits the single largest concentration of animal health interests in the world, according to the KC animal health corridor website. Bayer Animal Health, Vetmedica, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and CEVA/Biomune are here, among other big players in the industry. In fact, more than 300 companies supporting the animal health industry call the corridor home, including five of the world’s ten largest animal health companies and two of the world’s largest pet food companies. Half of the world’s animal health businesses have some sort of connection to the corridor.

Why here?

The animal health industry continues to grow (up 5.1 percent in the last year), but businesses located in the corridor grow even faster. St. Joseph-based Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. had a growth rate of 21 percent in the same period, while Ceva Animal Health grew by 12 percent and Bayer by 13 percent. The numbers are great, but why are they great? What is it about this relatively flat and somewhat featureless stretch of earth that makes animal health businesses thrive? It makes sense to point to the Kansas City stockyards, which powered the region for more than a hundred years through the early 1990s, but that business and its echoes are more ag- and livestock-related, not accounting for companion animal productivity. A heritage of caring about animals is sure to trickle into all animal-related businesses (and certainly attracted vaccine manufacturers and other health-related businesses), but it can’t account for all of this astounding growth today. So why do animal health businesses that start here consistently succeed, and why do more and more move to the region to find success? Infrastructure and logistics are driving factors. Three major highways service the area, rail is easily accessible, and one of the larger airports offering air cargo services is smack dab in the middle of the corridor. It’s easy to get in and out of here, whether you’re moving products or people.

Workforce is another key. The best business in the world is only as good as its workers, and the density of animal-related businesses has led to several educational opportunities for people in the industry. Kansas City is located midway between Kansas State University and the University of Missouri, two of the country’s primary veterinary schools. Three more of the top schools are within a 300-mile bubble. The number of veterinarians, technicians and researchers in the industry is staggering; this fact alone is enough to draw businesses from all over the country, as well as the world.

Satellite business

Global corporations don’t become global on their own. Marketing, legal, transportation, storage and other services are required for success, and the success of the KC animal health corridor has spawned (and is partly a byproduct of) herds of the satellite services a company needs to thrive. It’s a positive phenomenon that feeds itself; the animal and pet businesses succeed and get bigger, causing them to require (and therefore support) more and more supplemental businesses; more and more of those supplementals flock to the area, making the corridor even more attractive to the “anchoring” businesses. It’s like a dog chasing its tail, but with only good outcomes.

The corridor makes good business sense

In short, we’re trying to say that if you’re in (or thinking of getting into) the animal business –pet or otherwise— consider expanding or relocating to the animal health corridor. Everything you need to succeed is here, and with forward-thinking people investing in resources like the KC Animal Health forum, which has raised more than $150 million to help businesses in the corridor get off the ground, there is plenty of assistance and expertise to help you put your plans into motion.

And when you get here, look us up. Woodruff Sweitzer has offices in Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri, for a reason; our long history in pet and animal health can only help you stay ahead of the pack.