Beef production is a tough industry. You can do everything right caring for your cattle, run your operations efficiently and still have a slim profit margin. Cattle producers juggle many responsibilities to care for their herds while also managing their business operations. To stay a few steps ahead, cattle producers — and the veterinarians they rely on to help them keep their cattle healthy — also must research the latest technologies and the best animal health products to help them ensure that what they are doing, or the products they are purchasing, are helping them meet or exceed their production goals.
To help veterinarians and busy producers make more informed, confident decisions, Bimeda has carried out a large-scale comparative study at a commercial feed yard in the northern High Plains. Bimeda is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of veterinary pharmaceuticals and was the first to produce a Food and Drug Administration-approved branded alternative to the pioneer tulathromycin product that’s been on the market since 2005 — Draxxin®. Called Macrosyn® (tulathromycin injection), this bioequivalent, broad spectrum antibiotic is a one-time injectable that can be used to treat a variety of conditions in cattle, but is most commonly used for the treatment and control of bovine respiratory disease (BRD).
A one-of-a-kind research study
Macrosyn hit the market in February of 2021 immediately following Draxxin’s patent expiration, and it’s market share has been growing ever since, even though other branded alternatives are now available. In 2022, Bimeda published its technical bulletin describing a research study comparing Macrosyn and the pioneer drug to control bovine respiratory disease. Bimeda contracted with a research organization in northern High Plains that regularly conducts research for pharmaceutical companies and conducted a randomized complete block design study with 4,685 moderate- to high-risk steers. The steers were randomized upon arriving to the feed yard and received either Macrosyn or Draxxin as metaphylactic treatment for the control of BRD.
The results are in
After months of trial planning, execution and analysis, the trial was complete and the outcome was that there were no significant difference between the two groups in measured health or performance outcomes, as anticipated. “I don’t think anyone was surprised that Macrosyn worked just as well as the pioneer product,” says Dr. Chris Thomsen, a veterinarian who has worked exclusively with cattle for 23 years and is one of Bimeda’s technical service veterinarians, noting that trusted brand alternatives are common in animal health. “But it was a good confidence-builder that we took that extra step nobody else has, to conduct a big study and prove our product performs the same.”
The technical bulletin
Many folks at Bimeda have worked exclusively with cattle and cattle producers and are driven to help others in the industry succeed, including Thomsen. “The technical bulletin is our way of getting those study results into a usable form so we can share it with people in the cattle business,” says Thomsen. “Cattle producers need to know they’re doing the best thing possible to maximize the health and performance of their animals.”
The bulletin describes the challenge of BRD for beef producers and the economic costs of the disease. Then, after discussing the necessity of products like Macrosyn, its history and bioequivalency, the bulletin dives into the study itself. If producers using the product have questions about the study’s methods, the answers are all in the bulletin, including steer sourcing, randomization, housing methods, how they measured animal health and how they analyzed results. For total transparency, the bulletin includes numerical data in easy-to-scan tables.
Confidence in a proven product
Ultimately, this trial — and the technical bulletin that summarizes it — was a strategic initiative carried out by Bimeda who, having the utmost confidence in their manufacturing standard, product quality and effectiveness, wanted an unbiased way to prove it. The results are helping Bimeda do just that. Thomsen said it best: “The trial results give the end-user confidence that, ‘hey, this product really is the same as the pioneer.’”
The results of this study, along with Macrosyn’s significant market share since launching, also enabled Bimeda to differentiate their product from other competitors’ that have also entered the market following the pioneer product’s patent expiration but have not done such work.
To view the technical bulletin in its entirety, go to macrosyn.com.
