Anti-Aging Pill for Dogs Clears Key FDA Hurdle (msn.com) 46
San Francisco-based biotech startup Loyal says a drug it developed to increase dogs' lifespan "has passed a significant milestone on the way to regulatory approval," reports the Washington Post:
The Food and Drug Administration certified the daily pill as having a "reasonable expectation of effectiveness" at extending senior dogs' lifespans. The regulator's Center for Veterinary Medicine still has to certify that the drug is safe and that Loyal can manufacture it at scale before vets can prescribe the pill to dogs 10 years or older that weigh 14 pounds or more. Loyal's CEO, Celine Halioua, estimates that the process should be complete by the end of 2025 and called the FDA's initial recognition "a key step" to extending dogs' lives...
In the past decade, a subculture of tech entrepreneurship has focused on helping people stave off death, hawking custom-made dietary supplements and $2,500 full-body MRIs and investing in the development of antiaging drugs, among many other efforts. According to data firm Pitchbook, about $900 million in venture capital has been poured into antiaging and longevity start-ups in the past 12 months. Loyal has raised more than $150 million in venture funding since its 2019 founding to develop lifespan-extending drugs initially focused on canines.
Launching veterinary drugs is in some ways easier than winning approval for human treatments. Because dogs and humans have evolved alongside one another, Halioua hopes to eventually apply her findings about pets to help prolong their owners' lives. "If we can successfully delay the onset and severity of age-related diseases in dogs, it's extremely compelling evidence that it will also do that in humans," Halioua said. The biological processes of aging unfold faster in dogs because they live such short lives, she said, helping researchers and entrepreneurs probe how they work.
"Loyal's pill is a result of research into how to mimic the life-extending benefit of caloric restriction without the appetite suppression," according to the article, "and without the need for an owner to restrict their dog's food.
"The drug aims to improve a dog's metabolic fitness, or the body's ability to convert nutrients into energy and regulate hormones, which declines in humans and canines with age..."
In the past decade, a subculture of tech entrepreneurship has focused on helping people stave off death, hawking custom-made dietary supplements and $2,500 full-body MRIs and investing in the development of antiaging drugs, among many other efforts. According to data firm Pitchbook, about $900 million in venture capital has been poured into antiaging and longevity start-ups in the past 12 months. Loyal has raised more than $150 million in venture funding since its 2019 founding to develop lifespan-extending drugs initially focused on canines.
Launching veterinary drugs is in some ways easier than winning approval for human treatments. Because dogs and humans have evolved alongside one another, Halioua hopes to eventually apply her findings about pets to help prolong their owners' lives. "If we can successfully delay the onset and severity of age-related diseases in dogs, it's extremely compelling evidence that it will also do that in humans," Halioua said. The biological processes of aging unfold faster in dogs because they live such short lives, she said, helping researchers and entrepreneurs probe how they work.
"Loyal's pill is a result of research into how to mimic the life-extending benefit of caloric restriction without the appetite suppression," according to the article, "and without the need for an owner to restrict their dog's food.
"The drug aims to improve a dog's metabolic fitness, or the body's ability to convert nutrients into energy and regulate hormones, which declines in humans and canines with age..."
If my dog dies at 14 (Score:2, Insightful)
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This doesn't really seem like an evidence-based product.
Translation: Par for the fucking course when you consider what the FDA approves for human consumption.
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Re:If my dog dies at 14 (Score:4, Interesting)
Individuals will never know, but if we track it collectively we'll get statistical proof within a decade or so.
However, metabolically I believe humans are closer to pigs than to dogs - we ought to be funding pig farmers to set the occasional pig aside for longevity testing rather than bacon production.
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Which is why anecdotal evidence is rather weak, it's a sample size of one.
On the other hand, if decent studies are done and are reproducible, you can gain quite a bit of confidence in efficacy. Not that you'll always get that out of the FDA, but there are drugs that are used that have been demonstrated as effective.
Clinical trial results (Score:2)
https://loyal.com/posts/our-lo... [loyal.com]
If they don't register and make public the details of the trial well before the results are announced, if they don't replicate it in a second trial, if their study size, duration, or retroactively chosen endpoints are cheesy, well, so much for that. The $100M question though is will they find a way to sell it off label to humans?
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That's how everything works in medicine and clinical research / clinical development. It could be any question - do the dogs live longer with the pill? Is survival or life expectancy extended using such and such medicine for such and such cancer? Does operative coronary bypass have longer survival versus endovascular angioplasty? Does the little purple pill keep your dick harder longer versus the polka dot pill?
It's all statistics. We do studies that show that those in one group versus the other group
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All we can know is that collectively, the population as a whole will benefit, and that is the basis for decisions.
In the population as a whole benefitting, are the people who die because of their prescription drugs counted? Or is that just a bit of an oopsie.
I've been through the mill with family members including the SO, who have been badly harmed by prescription drugs, and I have managed so far to stay out of the system
It is undeniable that once the system gets you, you'll be prescribed an increasing number of drugs, and the likliehood of one or more of them will kill you increases.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.ni [nih.gov]
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While taking this pill, how do I know it wouldn't have died at 13 without it? This seems rather convenient for what will be a very expensive medication for fancy people. How can you prove liability vs. the claims of the drug producer when your dog dies when it does? This doesn't really seem like an evidence-based product.
And you have hit the nail on the head.
It's the maintenance drug impossible to prove conundrum. While there are some drugs that are obviously needed, there are many that are pretty sketchy.
Will you have lived Any longer if you didn't take the cocktail of drugs that doctors and pharmacists are eager to put everyone on? Who knows?
I do know the legally prescribed medicine is now one of the biggest causes of death. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov] But we don't want to allow the product killing people
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I hate dogs and their constant need for attention.
You've never met my cat.
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I hate dogs and their constant need for attention.
You've never met my cat.
He's never met our President, or the old, checked-out, orange guy next to him. :-)
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He's never met our President, or the old, checked-out, orange guy next to him. :-)
lol, thanks, i needed a laugh today
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Truth. That and how loud they can be.
Re: Need one for cats (Score:2)
Overpopulation (Score:2)
Sit/Tuck (Score:2)
One question... (Score:3)
Do they eat their own dog food?
You don't want your dog to die, do you? (Score:3)
Does it work? Oh, definitely, of course it works. Now what's your credit card number?
You don't want your dog to die, do you?
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You don't want your dog to die, do you?
As someone who had to put their dog down a few months back this temptation is strong and understandable and it can feel like finding a vet you can trust is like finding a mechanic. There's a big knowledge gap and people are in an emotional state so it's easy to get... into bad choices let's say.
I think our responsibility as owners is to minimize suffering for the animal not to maximize longevity, as much as it hurts to have to let go but I try to remember there's probably a dozen more dogs in the pound dow
Re: You don't want your dog to die, do you? (Score:2)
I can see how this product can sell itself based on pressing your emotional buttons. They can't really prove it works and you or your wife don't really need proof it works. We'll wait here for you to fish out your credit card. Now that last part is a bit facetious.
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Thank you he was a good boy.
My mother in law years ago went through an experience like that which really shaped my thoughts on this, their husky had a large growth on his front leg which just kept getting bigger. Now this husky was around 11 which is getting pretty old for the breed but their vet was like "oh yeah we should totally take that off for his quality of life" and it ended up being a debacle and my impression was this vet really did not have the best interests of the animal in mind.
I also don't w
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My first pet was truly my best companion. I would have died for that dog. I can still remember the night before vividly, I promised I would not over-extend his life and I don't think I did. It is impossible to tell. I do recall being outraged at my vet for suggesting that I could take him home for one more night before we euthanized. Even doped up he was in pain. But I get it. Some people keep yellar
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I also don't want to say it was malice for money but I think it's a dangerous combo of the owners are upset and wants an option, the vet doesn't want to upset the person more and maybe think they can actually help (and like most people in our own professions we want to push what we think we are capable of) but I think that ends up being the people helping the people and the animal suffers for it.
That thinking is not confined to people and pet interactions. My wife's mother was in the medical field and she many times saw a situation where the Husband/Mother/Daughter/Son wanted for their loved one to undergo a procedure (even if it would dramatically lower their quality of life) because "They couldn't live without them". Basically, putting their needs above what was good for the patient. My wife, who is sadly no longer with us, was very blunt with me and told me that if that situation ever arose with
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In my area, all the vet clinics are being bought out by private equity. I see you've seen the early signs.
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Actually, I do.
When dogs get old, they have health problems just like people. Many dogs have trouble with their hind legs, you can see it when they get old they don't want to sit, and when they're sat down, they don't want to stand. It hurts them, they get weak, it compounds.
I am totally comfortable with letting dogs die before their quality of life deteriorates to the point where they would rather starve themselves lying on the floor, than get up to eat or drink
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We should be more like that with humans, imho.
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Where's the important info? (Score:4, Interesting)
What we all want to know is how much longer will this drug extends a dog's lifetime and what is the expected quality of that extension? You'd think that is the most important information, in fact, probably the only important information aside from safety and cost. I don't see this info anywhere in the article or links.
Googling separately, the company Loyal cites separate research suggesting that 2 additional years of healthy life is possible with calorie restriction, with the implication that their drug will achieve the same results. However, since this claim is not directly claimed with the recent PR, I would assume that the experiments did not support this claim and were not as successful.
Very unlikely to ever help humans (Score:2)
The problem is not the genetic differences between human and dogs, but instead the differences between living for upto 15 years and living for upto 100 years.
Old age is mainly from the slow accumulation of issues. Genetic damage. Telomeres vanishing. Build up of cholesterol. Plaques in the brain. Things like that.
The things that build up over 15 years are not the same things that build up over 100 years. Moreover any treatment is likely to add a specific amount of time, not a percent. That is, if a dr
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The problem is not the genetic differences between human and dogs, but instead the differences between living for upto 15 years and living for upto 100 years.
Old age is mainly from the slow accumulation of issues. Genetic damage. Telomeres vanishing. Build up of cholesterol. Plaques in the brain. Things like that.
The things that build up over 15 years are not the same things that build up over 100 years. Moreover any treatment is likely to add a specific amount of time, not a percent. That is, if a drug adds 1 year to a dog, extending their life expectancy by 7%, it will still only add 1 year to a human, adding 1%.
On the contrary, if it really does mimic the effect of severe caloric restriction it should work in humans, because severe caloric restriction is the only thing we do know (with plenty of rock-solid evidence too) that *significantly* prolongs life in humans. And also in pretty much every other animal, monkeys, dogs, mice, fruit flies, all the way down to nematodes. That's the rule here, if it works in mice there's no guarantee it'll translate to humans, but if it works across pretty much all phylia, yes, we
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That is, if a drug adds 1 year to a dog, extending their life expectancy by 7%, it will still only add 1 year to a human, adding 1%.
Right, only 1%, so why bother? What's a few more beautiful sunsets, conversations with the kids, or hugs?
CEOs are dum (Score:1)
....so dogs age faster because they age faster? And this dipshit is a CEO?
14 pounds (Score:2)
"For dogs" (Score:3)
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I guarantee you there's a forum on Reddit where life extension nuts are talking about safe dosages for humans, and another for people who love to take random drugs asking if you can get high by taking too much.
These drugs are already in human bodies.
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Is this product really for dogs or is it "for dogs"? I mean, it's for mammals and I'm sure it's not going to be abused by health nuts
At the moment, the product is for the dog owners. We love our pets, and it's a sad cruelty of life that they don't live all that long. So if some snake oil salesmen have a wonder drug claimed to make them live longer, it is a powerful temptation.
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it's a sad cruelty of life that they don't live all that long
It's not a sad cruelty, it's simply reality. What would be sad cruelty would be life-extending creatures for your own personal pleasure.
Fluff piece (Score:2)
Redundant product (Score:2)
It says right in the blurb - mimcs the effect of a calorie restricted diet. In other words, if someone wants to prolong their dog's life, stop feeding it so much or exercise it more. Or just turn your dog into a morbidly obese sedentary blob and spend $$$$$$ on some pill hoping it will mitigate the damage you caused to that animal.
What about cats? (Score:2)
see subject