The anti-aging industry is coming for dogs! Biotech startup Loyal has developed a beef-flavored pill for dogs aged 10+ who are a minimum of 14 lbs, and last week the FDA cleared it through one round closer to being approved. As of now, the pill’s official status is a certification of “reasonable expectation of efficacy,” which sounds only like a mediocre tail wag, if you ask me. But once it gets certified as “safe for use,” which Loyal hopes to get by the end of this year, then vets would be able to start prescribing the pill to dogs who want to recapture their puppy glow. So how exactly does it work for your pup? You activate only once. You stabilize every day. You switch every seven days… Alright alright I’ll stop woofing around. Here are the real details:
Loyal, a biotech startup company that develops drugs for dogs, announced on Wednesday, Feb. 26, that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has certified its new medication as having “reasonable expectation of efficacy.”
The anti-aging pill still needed to be certified by the FDA that it is safe for use and can be manufactured at a greater scale before it can start being prescribed by veterinarians. The company noted that it had “extensive data supporting both” and planned to earn conditional approval from the FDA by the end of 2025.
Loyal said it is currently pursuing FDA approval to use the anti-aging drug — which comes as a beef-flavored pill — for “dogs 10 years and older” that weigh “at least 14 lbs.” It noted that the pill seeks to bolster “metabolic health,” which declines in dogs as they age.
The pill has certain limitations, though. The company noted that it could give canines a minimum of one extra year of healthy life.
“We’re not making immortal dogs,” Celine Halioua, Loyal’s founder and CEO, told The Guardian. “The way the drug extends lifespan, we hypothesize, is by extending health and thus shortening the rate of aging.”
Loyal aren’t the only ones researching how to extend the lifespan of dogs. The Dog Aging Project is also taking a look at how rapamycin — a drug used in human organ transplants to help prevent organ rejection, per the NIH — could extend a dog’s lifespan by an extra three years by improving the animal’s heart and cognitive functions, according to The Guardian.
“Our study is light years ahead of anything that’s been done on humans or can be done on humans,” Daniel Promislow, a biogerontologist at the University of Washington and a co-director of the Dog Aging Project, told the U.K.-based outlet. “What we’re doing is the equivalent of a 40-year-long study on humans, testing the ability of a drug to increase healthy lifespan.”
The recent research done by Loyal and the Dog Aging Project could also have greater implications when it comes to the human body.
“If we’re successful with dogs, it could be a turning point in informing us how to give human populations extra healthy lifespan too,” Promislow added.
“We’re not making immortal dogs.” Then what are we even doing here?! Look, from an academic learning perspective, I am all for more research into woman’s best friend. And I also understand how scientific research like this could eventually benefit humans as well (even if our current federal government doesn’t understand that basic concept). But overall I’m skeptical. This pill strikes me more as reaching for a magic bullet, not unlike Barbra Streisand cloning her beloved pooch, only to philosophically conclude “you can’t clone the soul.” And I totally understand the deep, aching desire to have our floofs with us for as long as possible. This past Sunday was not only the Oscars — which my dearly-departed My Girl ritually ignored each and every year — it was also what would’ve been her 13th birthday, the first one we marked since her passing. (I’ve since opened my heart and home to another rescue, My Guy, and he dutifully slept through the award show in his predecessor’s honor.) Believe me, when it was time to say goodbye to My Girl, I sobbed and wailed. Ultimately, though, I think the best anti-aging treatment is to keep our pups fit, healthy, and vaccinated. And belly-rubbed, of course.
photos credit: Ilana Kap, Victor Cayke, Rachel Claire, Jeff Vanderspank and Kanashi on Pexels
“Ultimately, though, I think the best anti-aging treatment is to keep our pups fit, healthy, and vaccinated. And belly-rubbed, of course.”
I totally agree with this, Kismet.
Why waste money on a drug with no quantifiable advantages, when we all know that everything that has an effect also has (a) side effect(s).
It’s better to interact with Doggie, go outside, play, enjoy life. And the therapeutical effect of belly rubs should never be counted out.
Same goes for humans. Add hugs and cuddles and lots of love.
The Dogstance…we shall see if this works. RFK will be reaching out to Chewy for his Covid and antiage meds.
The Dogstance. We shall see. Now RFK Jr can reach out to Chewy for all of his pharmaceutical needs.
Sounds to me like it’s more legal and less expensive to experiment on dogs than it is on people. That’s why this research is light years ahead.
The way I’m reading it, it seems more about extending their healthy life rather than extending their life as a whole. To say, you get about 1 year total more, and rather than decline in the last 3 years, they are good years without aches and pains and health problems. But I guess we’ll see. I’ve got a 14 year old and a 9 year old, so I’m in it right now.
I am kind of with you on the “what are we even doing here?” take. If this is meant to make their existing years healthier and happier, then I get the point. If it has benefits for dogs but also can be used to help humans, that’s great too. My kids grew up with two wonderful dogs, who lived to be 14 and 17. While I would have loved to have had them around longer and was sad to let them go, I also accepted that it was their time.
The thing is, dogs don’t have a sense of their own mortality. In their waning days, they aren’t thinking “I never got a chance to see my grandchildren” or “I wish I had climbed Mount Everest.” They want love and comfort and to feel as pain-free as possible, but that can be achieved without prolonging their lives.
Our old kelpie girl was prescribed HRT when she was starting to lose bladder control. It fixed the problem plus she was a lot more bouncy after she started taking it. Would recommend.
This hits hard – I just had to say goodbye to my baby two months ago. She was only 9 years old. I would give anything to give her a couple extra years.
I’m so very sorry, Riley.
My dog is 8 — I worry about her already. I cannot imagine life without her.