Dogs don’t live long enough. The family Lab might make it to 14; bigger beasts like Bernese mountain dogs are lucky to see 9. Celine Halioua thinks they deserve a few more years. A scientist, Oxford Ph.D. dropout and former chief of staff at the first venture capital fund focused on longevity-related biotechs, she has spent the last nearly six years building Loyal, a San Francisco startup developing drugs to delay canine aging by targeting metabolic and hormonal imbalances before they become disease. The company’s first beef-flavored longevity pill could hit the market by 2026, potentially extending dogs’ lives—and perhaps someday ours as well.
“I realized that to do this in humans would take billions of dollars, patent issues and trauma, but you could do it in dogs,” says Halioua, 30, whose own dog, Della, is a senior Rottweiler mix that she adopted three years ago.
Loyal doesn’t have any revenue yet, but Halioua is in conversations with the FDA and has cleared early hurdles. Under the agency’s conditional approval program for innovative veterinary drugs, Halioua hopes to get the okay to be on the market with its first drug, which changes the metabolism of senior dogs (ages 10 and up) to mimic a low-calorie diet, which has been shown to extend their lives, next year. Loyal also has both a shot and a pill in the works to lengthen large dogs’ short lifespans by limiting a growth hormone more prevalent in big dogs than small.
Halioua has raised $135 million in equity (and an additional $20 million in venture debt) from top investors that include Bain Capital, First Round, Khosla Ventures and Valor Equity Partners at a valuation of $425 million. The market is potentially enormous: There are nearly 90 million dogs across some 60 million households in the United States, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Last year those households spent an average of $1,852 on their pups, a 6% increase over 2023. Loyal’s drugs have the potential to quickly generate hundreds of millions in revenue, should they get the regulatory nod.
That’s why Loyal made the cut for this year’s Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, Forbes’ annual showcase of the 25 companies we think most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation.
Read the full story, an updated on Loyal for Dogs:
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Going to… market with its first drug, which changes the metabolism of senior dogs (ages 10 and up) to mimic a low-calorie diet, which has been shown to extend their lives.
Rapamycin derivative?
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Very possible… Matt K. is on her board of scientific advisors.
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drew_ab
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I assume there must be way less regulatory issues for developing/trialling these drugs in dogs as opposed to people right?
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My understanding is that the hurdles are not very much lower in terms of FDA approval for dogs, its just that dogs age so much faster than humans that clinical trials do not need to be very long (compared to in humans) to show efficacy; especially with regard to lifespan improvement, which is their focus.
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So, you sign up your dying dog.
Never let them know when it has died… take it’s doggie longevity meds… possibly rapamycin.
All good… except your strange desire to howl… and hump your friend’s leg. Lol.
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