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The mission of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is to protect human and animal health throughout the United States. Accomplishing such a broad and varied mission takes many people working in many roles across the six offices that make up CVM. Each office has specific responsibilities, including:

Office of the Director

• Overseeing and directing our general activities.
• Coordinating and establishing policies to support our mission.
• Educating pet owners, animal producers, veterinarians, and the animal health industry about the products we regulate. 

Office of New Animal Drug Evaluation

• As part of the approval process for an animal drug, ensuring it is safe and effective, properly made, and adequately labeled and packaged.
• Ensuring that when food-producing animals, such as cattle and chickens, are treated with an animal drug, food made from those animals, such as meat, milk, and eggs, are safe for people to eat.

Office of Minor Uses and Minor Species

• Working to make more animal drugs legally available for minor species, such as ferrets and fish, and for minor uses (uses that are infrequent and limited) in a major species, such as horses and dogs.

Office of Management

• Providing direction of our administrative programs, including budget planning and execution, human resources, information technology, and training and talent development.
• Overseeing our safety, security, and facility services.

Office of Surveillance and Compliance

• Monitoring animal products to make sure that the companies marketing them are following the law. 
• When companies that market animal products violate the law, taking necessary action to make them comply, such as issuing warning letters and withdrawing unsafe products from the market. 

Office of Research

• Using science to develop and support our policies and regulatory decisions about animal food and drugs. 
• Developing and applying alternative methods (like organ-on-a-chip systems) to ensure animal drugs are safe and effective.  

We embrace the important concept of One Health in every aspect of our work—we recognize that the health of people, animals, and the environment is intertwined. A One Health approach involves experts in human health, animal health, and the environmental sciences working together to address health and environmental problems in the U.S and around the world. For example, medical advances in understanding and treating a disease in one species, such as heart disease in people, may be applied to other species, while a change in the environment can affect all living things, from people to animals to plants.

We are a small center within FDA, yet our work touches the lives of people and animals in the U.S. every day.