(p. A1) “When you adopt a dog, you’re adopting future heartbreak,” said Emilie Adams, a New Yorker who owns three Rhodesian Ridgebacks. “It’s worth it over time because you just have so much love between now and when they go. But their life spans are shorter than ours.”
In recent years, scientists have been chasing after drugs that might stave off this heartbreak by extending the lives of our canine companions. On Tuesday, the biotech company Loyal announced that it had moved one step closer to bringing one such drug to market. “The data you provided are sufficient to show that there is a reasonable expectation of effectiveness,” an official at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration informed the company in a recent letter. (Loyal provided a copy of the letter to The Times.)
That means that the drug, which Loyal declined to identify for proprietary reasons, has met one of the requirements for “expanded conditional approval,” a fast-tracked authorization for ani-(p. A19)mal drugs that fulfill unmet health needs and require difficult clinical trials. The drug is not available to pet owners yet, and the F.D.A. must still review the company’s safety and manufacturing data. But conditional approval, which Loyal hopes to receive in 2026, would allow the company to begin marketing the drug for canine life extension, even before a large clinical trial is complete.
. . .
. . . the letter, which came after years of discussion between Loyal and the F.D.A., suggests that the agency is open to canine longevity drugs, Ms. Halioua said.
. . .
Aging may be an inevitability, but it is not an unyielding one. Scientists have created longer-lived worms, flies and mice by tweaking key aging-related genes.
These findings have raised the tantalizing possibility that scientists might be able to find drugs that had the same life-extending effects in people. That remains an active area of research, but canine longevity has recently started to attract more attention, in part because dogs are good models for human aging and in part because many pet owners would love more time with their furry family members.
“There’s not a lot you wouldn’t do if you could stack the deck in your favor to preserve the life of your hairy, four-legged child,” said Ms. Adams, the Rhodesian Ridgeback owner.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story was updated Nov. 29, 2023, and has the title “Could a Drug Give Your Pet More Dog Years?”)