Norbrook Brand Guidelines: The Newry Veterinary Medicines Maker Founded in 1969

A contract manufacturer that grew its own lines.

Norbrook began in Newry, Northern Ireland, in 1969, when Edward Haughey founded Norbrook Laboratories Limited. English Wikipedia says Haughey came from Kilcurry in County Louth, north of Dundalk, and had begun a career in the pharmaceutical industry in the United States before moving to Northern Ireland, where he started Norbrook as a contract manufacturer of products for multinational companies and then developed its own product lines. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1994 and created a life peer as Baron Ballyedmond in 2004, the same source says; the company still calls its founder Lord Ballyedmond.

Manufacturing began in 1970, the company says, first in Bessbrook Mill and then, from 1972, in premises on the Greenbank Industrial Estate in Newry, built with help from the Local Enterprise Development Unit. Its first patent followed in 1974. In 1976 it won a contract with the Dutch company Philips Duphar, which the company presents as the start of its international business, and by 1978, it says, it was selling across Europe and in Africa, the Middle East and Canada. A further plant at Station Works in Newry was added in 1979.

The company’s own timeline marks 1987 as a turning point: that year the US Food and Drug Administration approved the Station Works plant to make sterile injectables for the American market, and Norbrook received its first Queen’s Award for Export. A site on the Armagh Road in Newry followed in 1990, and in the 1980s the company had already begun selling in Japan, it says.

Generic and own-developed medicines.

Norbrook makes veterinary medicines for farm animals and pets, and much of its range is generic. English Wikipedia lists the antibiotics Noroclav and Betamox and the anti-inflammatories Carprieve and Loxicom among its products. Among its farm products the company highlights Closamectin, which it calls one of its leading global products: a combination of ivermectin and closantel licensed by the UK regulators in 2006, launched as a pour-on for cattle in 2009 and as an injection for sheep the following year. The company says it launched its first major product for cats and dogs in 2001, and in the United States, which it calls its priority market, it received five FDA approvals in 2022 and introduced Firox chewable tablets for dogs.

Manufacturing is concentrated in Newry. The Irish Times reported in January 2017 that Norbrook had manufacturing facilities on five sites: three in Newry, one in Monaghan in the Republic of Ireland and one in Nairobi, Kenya, and that it employed some 2,000 people. The company says it set up manufacturing in Nairobi in 1993 to make products for East Africa, that since the 1990s it has made most of the active pharmaceutical ingredients it needs, and that it opened a packaging site at Carnbane in Newry in 2001. Sales and distribution businesses followed in Kansas, Melbourne, New Zealand and São Paulo in the 2000s, it says.

Exports carry the business: they accounted for most of its revenue, The Irish Times reported in 2017. Recognition has come through export awards. English Wikipedia lists a Queen’s Award for Export in 1987, a fourth such award in 2002 and a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2011. The company counts differently: it says it has received the export award on five occasions and describes its 2002 award as one for international trade.

Vets, farms and vaccines.

Animal health companies speak to several audiences at once: veterinarians in clinics, farmers and producers, and the owners of dogs and cats. Their imagery tends to follow those audiences. A vet examining a dog or a cat on a consulting-room table is one of the most familiar scenes, alongside cattle in a barn, pigs in a pen and flocks of poultry, often shown with the people who look after them.

The products themselves are less photogenic, so the same few objects recur: vaccine vials, syringes, blister packs of tablets, spot-on pipettes and collars, along with laboratory benches, protective clothing and production lines. Many companies in the sector make both medicines for pets and vaccines for livestock, and their websites usually split the range by species rather than by product.

The sector also meets its customers in person. Trade fairs and congresses such as the VMX veterinary conference in Orlando and the World Veterinary Congress are where companies launch products, run booths and sponsor talks, and their stands carry much of the same photography of animals, clinics and farms.

Many of these companies also present themselves through the idea of One Health, which links the health of people, animals and the environment, and through the language of independence, family control or shared ownership where it applies. Ceva, for example, uses the slogan “Together, beyond animal health,” while Virbac points to the family that still controls it. This guide sets out what can be checked about each company: who founded it, who owns it and where it works.

Still family-owned, still in Newry.

Norbrook remains a private business. The Irish Times described it as family-owned in 2017, and the company calls itself “a family owned global business” and “one of the largest privately owned animal health companies in the world.” Its website lists Liam Nagle, who became chief executive in 2015, as executive chairman, and a board that includes Lady Ballyedmond as vice chair and The Hon. Edward Haughey and Prof The Hon. James Haughey as directors.

The business has had leaner years too. In May 2023 Norbrook said it would look to cut 180 jobs amid what it called a “challenging global economic environment,” The Irish Times reported in May 2024, describing the group as a significant employer in the Newry area; its arm in the Republic, which markets and distributes its products from Monaghan, kept a stable headcount. The company says it has continued to invest in its plants, including new laboratories on the Armagh Road opened in late 2016 and warehousing in Monaghan, and it marked 50 years in business in 2019.

Its public face is functional. The website sorts its range by species — beef and dairy cattle, sheep, horses, dogs and cats — and offers separate routes for veterinary professionals and farmers, under a vision “to be a world class global provider of veterinary pharmaceuticals.” The company describes itself as a top 20 global manufacturer of veterinary pharmaceuticals.

For a design guide, Norbrook shows how a regional manufacturer can present a worldwide generic range from one home town. Compare Bimeda, another veterinary medicines maker with Irish roots, and Zoetis. For this guide we use a deep green, a slate and a warm off-white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Norbrook’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.