Modern Slavery Statement

Modern Slavery Act 2015 Statement

Our Policy

ECO Animal Health Group Plc (ECO) is opposed to slavery and human trafficking in any part of its business or supply chain. We are therefore committed to ensuring that we have suitable procedures and actions in place to identify and prevent these practices.

Our Business

ECO develops, registers and distributes pharmaceutical products for the global animal health markets. ECO is a public company, trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and is headquartered in the UK, employing over 200 people across 15 global offices. We are a semi-virtual company, making extensive use of contract research organisations and third-party manufacturers to conduct our research projects and produce our products. We sell in over 70 countries via subsidiaries, joint ventures, joint operations and third-party distributors.

Our Supply Chains

All of ECO’s supply chains operate within the heavily regulated pharmaceutical sector and must comply with the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Distribution Practice (GDP) requirements to ensure that our products are consistently produced, controlled and shipped according to quality standards. National regulators undertake regular inspections and ECO conducts its own audits of our suppliers and third-party manufacturers to ensure continued GMP compliance.

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. As part of our compliance with our slavery and human trafficking policy, that reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking are not taking place anywhere in our supply chains, we have, for example:

  • Written to all our subsidiaries and primary global contract manufacturers to explain the global context and extent of slavery, servitude, forced labour and human trafficking. We have shared ECO’s commitment to protecting workers and eradicating harmful and illegal practices throughout our global supply chains and we have obtained their signed commitment to taking positive steps to ensure that modern slavery has no place in their businesses or supply chain.
  • Between October 2022 and 31st March 2024, ECO has completed 42 Good Manufacturing/Distribution/Clinical audits and assessments on ECO’s contract manufacturers, Clinical Research Organisations and suppliers globally which includes sites located in China, USA, UK, Europe and Latin America. During these site visits and audits, there were no observations or concerns related to modern slavery practices identified.
Our Relevant Policies

Our policy on slavery and human trafficking is set out at the commencement of this statement.

In keeping with ECO’s commitment to act with integrity in all its business dealings, many of our existing policies are relevant to ensure that there is no slavery or human trafficking in any part of the business. Our relevant policies include:

  • Anti-bribery and Corruption Policy
  • Anti-harassment and Bullying Policy
  • Capability Policy
  • Equal Opportunities Statement
  • Whistleblowing Policy
  • Grievance Procedure
Training

Training is regularly undertaken to ensure our staff understand the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our business and supply chains, how they can identify if it is taking place and what actions they should take. Examples of such training are as follows:

  • Executive Leadership Team and international senior management training as part of a corporate governance modular training programme.
  • Since October 2022, 14 training courses (CPD accredited) were provided by our third-party training consultant, Peel Solutions Ltd. A total of 98 ECO staff were recorded as trained.
  • Refreshers and training for new staff is via a rolling programme of 2-hour online sessions via Teams.
Monitoring

ECO has established monitoring to assess the effectiveness of our procedures and activities to ensure that modern day slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in any part of our business or supply chains.

Board Approval

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement from April 2024.

The responsible director for this Modern Slavery statement, which has been approved by the Board of Directors of ECO Animal Health, is David Hallas, Chief Executive Officer.

11th April, 2024