A Business Journey That Still Inspires After 17 Years

Seventeen years ago, I boarded a flight with a notebook full of questions and a conviction that had not yet been tested on a global stage. I was not travelling for leisure. I was travelling because I believed the future of animal healthcare in Pakistan would be shaped by what we learned beyond our borders — from the people who manufacture veterinary pharmaceuticals, from the distributors who understand field realities, and from the scientists who never stop asking whether a formulation can be made safer, more stable, or more effective for the birds and animals that depend on it.

Looking back now, those weeks in 2009 feel less like a single trip and more like the opening chapter of everything Prix Pharmaceutica has become. The photographs from that journey — exhibition halls, distributor meetings, quiet moments between appointments — are not souvenirs. They are reminders that building a company in the Pakistan veterinary industry has always required patience, curiosity, and the willingness to sit across from someone who sees the world differently and listen carefully.

Looking Back

In March 2009, the global animal health sector was gathering momentum in Asia. Trade shows and distributor conferences were where relationships were formed — not through polished presentations alone, but through honest conversations about disease pressure, product performance, and the gap between what a label promises and what a farmer experiences at 5 a.m. on a poultry farm. I went to learn. I came back with a clearer picture of what veterinary innovation looked like in practice, and what it would take to bring that standard home.

At the XVET exhibition booth, the discussion was technical and direct. Which active ingredients were gaining traction in respiratory programmes? How were water-line medications being evaluated in the field? What did partners expect from a manufacturer they could trust for the long term? These were not abstract questions. They were the same questions our customers would ask us — and still ask us — about poultry medicine, antibiotics, anticoccidials, and the full range of veterinary solutions that keep flocks productive and healthy.

The best partnerships begin with humility — the willingness to admit what you do not yet know, and the discipline to learn before you promise.

— Baqir Hussain

That humility has guided Prix from the beginning. We did not set out to imitate what we saw abroad. We set out to understand it deeply enough to adapt it responsibly — to the regulatory environment, the farming practices, and the economic realities of Pakistan. Every conversation at an exhibition booth reinforced that livestock healthcare is not a transaction. It is a chain of trust that runs from the laboratory to the veterinarian to the farm gate.

Learning Beyond Borders

International travel for business is often described in terms of deals signed and contracts exchanged. What I remember most vividly are the informal moments — the lobby conversations, the shared meals, the quiet exchange of experience between people who have spent decades in animal nutrition and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Those moments taught me as much as any formal session.

In the conference lobby, partners from different countries compared notes on formulation stability, cold-chain logistics, and the evolving expectations of regulators. I listened more than I spoke. I wanted to understand how established companies maintained consistency across batches, how they trained their technical teams, and how they supported distributors who were on the ground every day advising farmers. That learning directly informed how we would later structure our own quality systems and our approach to science and quality at Prix.

On the exhibition floor, the energy was different — faster, louder, more competitive. Yet even there, the most valuable exchanges happened face to face. Walking the aisles of an animal health trade show, you see the breadth of the industry in a single afternoon: vaccines beside feed additives, diagnostic tools beside therapeutic products, companies from every continent presenting their answer to the same fundamental challenge — how to help animals live healthier lives so that the people who depend on them can thrive.

Networking at these events is not about collecting business cards. It is about finding the people who share your values — who believe that a veterinary pharmaceutical company should be measured not only by revenue but by the reliability of what it puts on the shelf. I met distributors who would become long-term allies. I met technical experts whose guidance would shape our product development priorities for years. I met competitors who, in the best sense of the word, pushed us to raise our own standards.

Building Lasting Partnerships

If there is one theme that runs through every photograph from 2009, it is partnership. The distributor meetings in Bangkok were not ceremonial gatherings. They were working sessions — reviewing market feedback, discussing registration timelines, aligning on the support that veterinarians and farmers would need when a new product launched. Sitting in those rooms, I understood that global veterinary partnerships are built on transparency and follow-through, not on handshakes alone.

The distributor meeting at Swissôtel Le Concorde brought together people who understood Southeast Asian markets with a depth I was still developing for Pakistan. They spoke about seasonal disease patterns, about the challenge of maintaining medication efficacy in high-temperature environments, and about the importance of clear labelling and farmer education. I took notes. Many of those notes became internal policies at Prix — how we communicate dosage guidance, how we respond to field reports, how we treat every piece of feedback as data rather than noise.

The Eurovet distributor meeting at VIV Asia was another milestone. VIV Asia is one of the largest platforms for livestock and poultry professionals in the region, and being present there in 2009 confirmed something I had sensed but not yet fully articulated: Pakistan belongs in this conversation. Our farmers face the same coccidiosis challenges, the same respiratory disease complexes, the same pressure to produce more with fewer resources. The solutions may need local adaptation, but the science is shared.

Today, when customers visit our product catalogue or consult our team about a specific health concern for poultry, cattle, or companion animals, they benefit from partnerships that were seeded in rooms like these. We did not build Prix in isolation. We built it by standing on the shoulders of international collaborators who were generous with their knowledge — and by committing, in return, to represent their standards faithfully in our market.

Visiting New Places

Not every moment of a business journey happens in a conference room. Some of the most lasting impressions come from simply being present in a place — walking its streets, noticing its history, feeling the distance from home that sharpens your perspective. Between meetings in Thailand, I found time to explore, to reflect, and to remember that the work we do in veterinary pharmaceuticals connects to something larger than any single product or contract.

Standing beside the lion statue at a building entrance, I thought about what it means to lead a company — not as a title, but as a daily responsibility. The lion is a symbol of strength in many cultures. In our industry, strength is measured differently: by the stability of a formulation, by the consistency of a supply chain, by the trust of a veterinarian who recommends your product because it has worked, reliably, season after season.

The railway bridge overlooking the river was a quieter scene — no booths, no badges, no agendas. Just the reminder that infrastructure, like animal health systems, must be built to endure. A bridge that looks solid from a distance still depends on engineering, maintenance, and the people who inspect it regularly. Our approach to livestock healthcare follows the same principle: visible results rest on invisible discipline.

At the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, conversation turned reflective. History has a way of grounding ambition — reminding you that hardship and perseverance are not abstract concepts but lived experiences. I carried that feeling back to my work. Building Prix Pharmaceutica would require the same kind of endurance: long hours, difficult decisions, setbacks that test your conviction, and the quiet satisfaction of progress measured in years rather than weeks.

The historic architecture I encountered during later travels — a gothic building with a clock spire rising above the street — spoke to a different kind of permanence. Institutions that last do so because they serve a purpose that outlives any individual leader. That is the company I wanted to build: one that would still matter seventeen years later, and seventeen years after that, because the quality of its contribution to animal healthcare remained undeniable.

These places — exhibition halls and railway museums, hotel lobbies and city streets — formed the backdrop of a journey that changed how I understood my role in the Pakistan veterinary industry. Travel broadens perspective not because it introduces novelty, but because it forces comparison. You see how others solve problems you face at home. You return with ideas, yes, but also with renewed gratitude for the market you serve and the responsibility you carry.

Bringing Knowledge Home

The return flight is always shorter than the outbound one, emotionally if not geographically. You carry suitcases and samples, but more importantly, you carry frameworks — ways of thinking about quality, partnership, and customer support that were refined in conversations thousands of miles from Lahore. Translating that knowledge into action is where many good intentions stall. We were determined not to stall.

Every international airport terminal looks different and somehow the same — the same mix of anticipation and fatigue, the same awareness that you are crossing a boundary between where you learned and where you must apply. For Prix, applying what we learned meant investing in manufacturing discipline, expanding our product range with an emphasis on poultry medicine and broader veterinary solutions, and building a technical team that could speak credibly to veterinarians in the field.

We also invested in documentation and transparency. Farmers and veterinarians deserve to know what they are using, why it is registered, and how it should be administered. Our commitment to science and quality is not marketing language — it is the operational consequence of sitting in distributor meetings where partners made clear that reputations are earned slowly and lost quickly. One batch failure, one mislabelled product, one unreturned phone call from a concerned customer can undo years of trust.

The knowledge we brought home also shaped how we think about animal nutrition and therapeutics as complementary parts of a health programme rather than competing priorities. A flock that receives adequate nutrition but lacks access to effective medication when disease strikes will still underperform. A flock treated aggressively with antibiotics but poorly managed in terms of housing and feed will develop resistance and economic loss. Integrated thinking — learned from global partners and adapted locally — remains central to how we advise customers through our resources and technical support channels.

Knowledge acquired abroad has value only when it is translated with respect for local conditions — the climate, the regulations, the farmer who reads the label by torchlight at the end of a long day.

— Baqir Hussain

Continuing the Journey

Seventeen years have passed since those exhibition halls and distributor meetings in Bangkok. Prix Pharmaceutica has grown — in product range, in team size, in the depth of our relationships with veterinarians and farmers across Pakistan. But the spirit of that first journey has not aged. We still believe that staying current with veterinary innovation requires showing up — at conferences, in laboratories, in conversations with the people who raise and treat animals every day.

We still believe that global veterinary partnerships are the foundation of local excellence. The companies and individuals we met in 2009 set a standard we continue to measure ourselves against. When we develop a new formulation, register a product, or respond to a field inquiry, we ask the same questions we asked at the XVET booth: Is this reliable? Is this needed? Does it represent the best we can offer?

If you are a veterinarian, a distributor, or a farmer navigating the complexities of livestock healthcare, we invite you to explore our products, learn about the animal categories we serve, and reach out when you need technical guidance. The journey that began seventeen years ago is not complete. It continues with every batch we manufacture, every partnership we honour, and every customer we serve with the same conviction that carried me across continents in 2009.

Thank you for reading. Here is to the next chapter — built on the same foundations of curiosity, quality, and care that have defined Prix Pharmaceutica from the very beginning.