AN animal health specialist is celebrating after scooping two industry awards.

Emilie Wix, a livestock and animal health specialist with Framlingham-based farming co-operative AtlasFram Group, was presented with the accolades during the 2012 Animal Health Distributors Association (AHDA) Conference and Exhibition at Hinckley, Leicestershire.

The conference is a key event for the animal health industry which is attended by 500 senior staff.

The first of Emilie’s Awards, ‘Top R-SQP Student’, was presented by the Animal Medicines Training Regulatory Authority (AMTRA), the independent regulatory body tasked with ensuring that the prescription and supply of VPS animal medicines in the UK is undertaken responsibly by qualified staff.

R-SQP is the highest level of Suitably Qualified Person (SQP), and enables the holder to prescribe and supply all categories of POM-VPS medicines, covering the farm, equine and companion animal sectors.

Emilie also beat off tough competition from eight other finalists to win the coveted AHDA Cup for Overall Best SQP Student of The Year, sponsored by Novartis Animal Health.

Emilie, who was born at Ely, Cambridgeshire, lived in Portugal from the age of two until seven, then moved to Scotland with her mother, where she helped with the family-run livery yard.

After completing her A Levels, she embarked on a three-month residential course at the Northern Racing College at Doncaster and became a work rider with a leading trainer at Cheltenham, the home of national hunt racing.

Two and a half years later, after finding it increasingly difficult to achieve the required riding weight, she looked at other opportunities.

Having gained a BSc in Animal Science and Applied Biology, she worked in microbiology before joining the AtlasFram Group’s Purchasing Department in 2009.