They are man’s best friend and part of the family, but due to their shorter lifespan, most owners often have to say goodbye to their canine companions far too early.
However, that could soon change thanks to a biotech company working on a drug that could extend a dog’s life.
Loyal, the San Francisco biotech, received confirmation from the Food and Drug Administration for Veterinary Medicine on Tuesday that data on its candidate, LOY-001, supports “reasonable expectations of effectiveness.”
This groundbreaking decision from the FDA is the final box Loyal must check before veterinarians can start prescribing the long-lived drug to our four-legged friends.
LOY-001 is one of three drugs the company is working on and is expected to be launched in 2026. It aims to target a cellular mechanism in dogs to extend the healthy lifespan of large and giant breed dogs, which age faster and have better health. shorter lifespan than smaller breeds.
A San Francisco biotech company has developed a drug that could make your dog live longer — and humans are the next step in their groundbreaking longevity research
On Tuesday, the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine agreed that the company’s data support “reasonable expectations of effectiveness” of its drug, which aims to extend the lifespan of dogs.
LOY-001 – expected to launch in 2026 – aims to extend the healthy lifespan of large and giant breed dogs
Loyal said it is unclear why smaller dogs tend to live longer than their larger counterparts, but “it is clear… body size and growth rate are key factors,” adding that larger breeds are more likely to suffer from musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis. .
The company also suggested that selective and cross-breeding could play a role in aging, stating that it reportedly causes increased levels of IGF-1 – a growth-promoting hormone – which is believed to reduce the time a dog has to live , shortened. Studies have shown that large dogs have up to 28 times higher IGF-1 levels than small dogs.
LOY-001 targets this genetic disorder by reducing the amount of IGF-1 in larger dogs.
“The extreme phenotypic variation found in dogs is not ‘natural’ – it is the result of intensive breeding by humans to create dogs that excel at tasks such as herding, protection and companionship,” said Brennen McKenzie, Loyal’s director of veterinary medicine . a Business thread press release.
‘At Loyal, we do not view the short lifespan of large dogs as inevitable, but as a genetically associated disease caused by historical artificial selection, and therefore amenable to targeting and treatment with a drug.’
The company added that drug development “gives us hope that we can extend the lifespan and health of large dogs by targeting the mechanisms associated with them.”
LOY-001 is a long-acting drug that, if approved, could be administered by veterinarians as an injection every three to six months, but will be limited to dogs that are seven years or older and weigh at least 40 pounds.
Other products the company is working on include LOY-002, a daily pill targeted at medium, large and giant breeds, and LOY-003, a daily pill intended exclusively for large and giant breeds.
CEO of Loyal, Celine Halioua, 29, believes dogs are just the first step in our ability to extend lives and she thinks humans could be next.
She was hesitant to give a specific age range that dogs can live to, but said, “We’re not going to make 80-year-old dogs.”
Halioua also avoided details on pricing, saying only that Loyal’s products will be “affordable but not dirt cheap.”
Loyal’s CEO is Celine Halioua, 29, from Austin, Texas. She studied at the University of Oxford, the University of Texas and Uppsala University in Sweden before founding the biotech startup in San Francisco at the age of 24.
Celine Halioua believes dogs are just the first step in our ability to extend lives and thinks humans could be next
Halioua, who founded Loyal at age 24, was inspired to tackle aging in dogs when she worked in an oncology clinic at age 18.
After meeting a terminal patient and being told that surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or drugs were not an option, she said Lifespan. Technology she had a “real existential crisis.”
She said: ‘Until that point in my life I hadn’t realized that harmful things could happen to your body, and there was nothing you could do about it.
“The feeling of that lack of free will, that lack of ability to control your destiny when it comes to your health, completely scared me.”
Over the course of a year and a half, while working at the Longevity Fund – which aims to extend people’s healthy lifespans – Halioua realized that no one was developing a drug that specifically targeted aging.
“I spent a year trying to figure out how it could happen in humans and came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be done without a billion dollars, which I didn’t have,” Halioua told the outlet.
Then she focused on a much more attainable goal: developing an age-lowering drug for dogs.
“Dogs are widely accepted as one of the best models, if not the best model, of human aging and age-related diseases,” she said.
‘They share an environment with us, they co-evolved with us, they all have the same environmental conditions and develop most of the same age-related diseases as we do, at about the same time in our lives.
“And so if we actually find a drug that extends the lifespan of dogs, I don’t think we’ll be able to commercialize that drug specifically for humans, but as a surrogate endpoint that will be a damn good first place to look.”
Loyal is currently in the clinical development phase of medications for companion dogs.
During this phase, the company is conducting a large-scale nationwide study to evaluate the drug’s safety and efficacy in real-world veterinary settings with pets.
The company is recruiting pups to participate in their research, but the dogs must be at least 10 years old, weigh 14 pounds or more and live near one of the 62 participating trial sites in the US.
The company is recruiting pups to participate in their research, but the dogs must be at least 10 years old, weigh 14 pounds or more and live near one of the 62 participating trial sites in the US.
Halioua was reluctant to give a specific age range that dogs could survive to, but said: ‘We’re not going to make 80-year-old dogs’
Smaller dogs generally live longer lives than larger dogs. That is why LOY-001 focuses specifically on extending the lives of large breeds
More than 1,000 dogs from across the country are currently involved in the four-year study. They all receive regular wellness visits and lab tests.
Before testing the products in real life, Loyal conducted preclinical studies in controlled laboratory settings to prove that the drug would have an effect on the dogs it aims to help.
It then conducted a pilot study to collect data to confirm that the treatment was safe and effective.
After the companion dog and clinical trial, the company will work with the FDA to approve the drug so it can be prescribed to dogs.
Loyal is part of another company called Cellular Longevity – a San Francisco-based biotech company investigating how drugs can lead to longer lives by controlling the mechanisms of pathological aging.
The drugs developed by the biotech companies are intended to “delay the onset” and “reduce the severity of age-related diseases.”