The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has published its 2024 Annual Summary of Sales and Distribution of Antimicrobials in Food-Producing Animals, according to the agency. The report represents the latest entry in a yearly series the FDA has produced since 2009.

What does the annual summary track?

The report compiles sales and distribution data for antimicrobial drugs approved for use in the four major U.S. food-producing species: cattle, swine, chickens, and turkeys. Drug sponsors submit the figures under Section 105 of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996, which requires annual reporting of antimicrobial sales to the FDA.

The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA CVM) then aggregates the data and publishes the summary each year. The 2024 edition is part of a series that now spans more than 15 reporting years, allowing researchers and regulators to assess long-term trends in domestic antimicrobial distribution.

What antimicrobial classes are included?

The summary tracks sales of antimicrobials the FDA considers medically important to human medicine, a categorization drawn from the agency's own lists. The classes covered historically include:

• Tetracyclines
• Penicillins
• Macrolides
• Fluoroquinolones
• Cephalosporins
• Sulfonamides
• Aminoglycosides

By tracking sales rather than use, the report cannot directly quantify on-farm administration, but it offers a proxy for how heavily the U.S. livestock industry depends on these drug classes.

Why does the report matter to practicing veterinarians?

For food-animal practitioners, the annual sales summary serves as a benchmark for stewardship discussions. Sales trends shape the regulatory conversation about which drug classes warrant closer veterinary oversight and which are losing market share to alternatives.

The 2017 implementation of the FDA's Veterinary Feed Directive and Guidance for Industry #213 marked a structural shift: any in-feed or in-water use of medically important antimicrobials now requires a veterinary order. The annual sales data allow the agency, veterinarians, and producers to evaluate whether the policy is continuing to bend the curve on overall antimicrobial distribution.

Where can readers access the full report?

The 2024 summary and historical years are posted on the FDA CVM website. The full dataset includes species-level breakdowns, route of administration (in-feed, in-water, or other), and class-by-class totals.

What's next in FDA antimicrobial tracking?

The annual sales report sits alongside other FDA antimicrobial-stewardship programs. The agency co-funds the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it continues to explore on-farm use data collection as a complement to sales metrics.

The 2024 figures will be measured against the multi-year downward trend that has characterized U.S. sales of medically important antimicrobials since the mid-2010s. As more years of data accumulate, the report's value lies less in any single year and more in the trajectory it reveals.