They’re man’s best friend and a part of the family, but their shorter lifespans mean most owners often have to say goodbye to their canine companions far too soon.
However, that could soon change thanks to a biotech company working on a drug that could extend a dog’s life by at least a year.
Loyal, a San Francisco biotech company, received confirmation Tuesday from the Food and Drug Administration for Veterinary Medicine that data on its candidate, LOY-001, supports ‘reasonable expectations of effectiveness.’
This landmark decision by the FDA makes Loyal one step closer to allowing vets to start prescribing the longevity drug to our four-legged friends.
LOY-001 is one of the three drugs the company is working on and is estimated to be launched in 2026.
A San Francisco biotech firm has created a drug that can make your dog live longer – and humans are the next step in their groundbreaking life longevity research
On Tuesday, the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine agreed that the company’s data supports ‘reasonable expectations of effectiveness’ for their drug, which aims to extend dogs’ lifespans
LOY-001 – which is estimated to be launched in 2026 – intends to extend the healthy lifespan for large and giant breed dogs
It aims to target a cellular mechanism in dogs to extend the healthy lifespan for large and giant breeds, which age faster and have a shorter lifespan than smaller breeds.
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 larger breeds are more likely to be affected by musculoskeletal disorders, like arthritis.
The company also proposed that selective and cross breeding could play a role in aging, stating it reportedly causes elevated IGF-1 levels – a growth promoting hormone – that is believed to reduce the amount of time a dog has to live.
Studies have shown large dogs have up to 28 times more IGF-1 levels than small dogs,
LOY-001 works to target this genetic anomaly by reducing the amount of IGF-1 in larger dogs.
‘The extreme phenotypic variety found in dogs is not ‘natural’ — it’s the result of intensive breeding by humans to create dogs that excelled at tasks such as herding, protection, and companionship,’ Brennen McKenzie, Loyal’s director of veterinary medicine, said in a Business Wire news release.
‘At Loyal, we see the short lifespan of big dogs not 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 the drug development ‘gives us hope that we could extend the lifespan and health span of large dogs by targeting mechanisms associated with these.’
LOY-001 is a long-acting drug that, if approved, can be administered by vets as an injection every three to six months.
But it will be limited to dogs that are seven years or older and that weigh at least 40 pounds.
Other products the company is working on are LOY-002, a daily pill that focuses on medium, large and giant breeds, and LOY-003, a daily pill for large and giant breeds only.
Loyal’s CEO, Celine Halioua, 29, believes dogs are just the first step in our ability to elongate lives and she thinks humans could be next.
She was reluctant to provide a specific age range that dogs could live until – but said: ‘We are not going to make 80-year-old dogs.’
Halioua also avoided specifics 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 Oxford University, the University of Texas and Uppsala Universitet 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 elongate lives and thinks humans could be next
Halioua, who founded Loyal at 24 years old, was inspired to tackle aging in dogs while working at an oncology clinic when she was 18.
After meeting with a terminal patient and being told surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or medications were not an option, she told Longevity.Technology she had a ‘proper existential crisis.’
She said: ‘Up until that point in my life, I hadn’t realized that detrimental things could happen to your body, and there would be nothing you can do about it.
‘Feeling that lack of freewill, that lack of ability to control your destiny when it comes to your health completely freaked me out.’
Over the course of a year and a half, while working at the Longevity Fund – which seeks to extend healthy lifespans in humans – Halioua realized no one was developing a drug specifically targeting aging.
‘I spent a year trying to figure out how do it 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.
It was then she turned to a much more attainable goal of developing an age reducing drug for dogs.
‘Dogs are well-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 have all the same environmental factors and develop most of the same age-related diseases we do, at approximately the same time in our lifetime.
‘And so if we actually find a drug that extends lifespan in dogs, I don’t think we’ll be able to specifically commercialize that drug for humans, but as a surrogate endpoint that will be a damn good first place to look.’
Loyal is currently in the ‘companion dog clinical study’ stage of its medications development.
During this stage, it 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 take part in their study, 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 take part in their study, 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 provide a specific age range that dogs would survive until – but said: ‘We are not going to make 80-year-old dogs’
Smaller dogs usually lead longer lives than bigger dogs, which is why LOY-001 specifically focuses on elongating the lives of large breeds
Over 1,000 dogs nationwide are currently involved in the four-year study. All of them receive regular wellness visits and lab tests.
Before testing the products in real life – Loyal conducted preclinical studies in controlled laboratory settings to prove the drug would have an effect on the canines it aims to help.
It then did a pilot study to gather data to confirm the treatment was safe and effective.
After the companion dog and clinical study, 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 – which is a San Francisco-based biotech firm which researches how drugs can lead to longer lives by controlling the mechanisms of pathological aging.
The drugs created by the biotech companies aim to ‘delay the onset’ and ‘reduce the severity of age-related diseases.’
