“In just a few short years, new diabetes and weight loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro have taken the world by storm. In the United States, one in eight adults say they’ve tried one of these medications, which are known as GLP-1 drugs, and that number seems sure to rise as prices fall and new oral formulations hit the market.

Fluffy and Fido could be next.

On Tuesday, Okava Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company based in San Francisco, is set to announce that it has officially begun a pilot study of a GLP-1 drug for cats with obesity. The company is testing a novel approach: Instead of receiving weekly injections of the drugs, as has been common in human patients, the cats will get small, injectable implants, slightly larger than a microchip, that will slowly release the drug for as long as six months…

Results are expected next summer. If they are promising, they could represent the next frontier for a class of drugs that has upended human medicine, and a potentially transformative treatment option for millions of pets.  Some veterinarians have already begun administering human GLP-1 drugs, off label, to diabetic cats.”

From New York Times.

“An international team of vets has made a breakthrough in a vaccine trial for a virus that killed seven elephants at Chester Zoo.

Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) is a leading cause of death for young Asian elephants, both captive and wild, with no cure. Trials with adult elephants at Chester Zoo found a new vaccine safely triggered a strong immune response. The team (University of Surrey, Chester Zoo, Animal and Plant Health Agency) observed no side effects.”

From The Independent.

“Pigs that are resistant to a deadly viral disease have been created by scientists at Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute.

The gene-edited animals remained healthy when exposed to classical swine fever (CSF), a highly contagious and often fatal disease. The virus was eradicated in the UK in 1966, but there have been several outbreaks since and it continues to pose a major threat to pig farming worldwide.”

From The Guardian.

“Darwin viewed animal testing as a necessary evil in the absence of viable alternatives. But this is beginning to change. Biotechnology innovations such as microfluidic chips, induced pluripotent stem cells, and 3D bioprinting are making it possible to grow human tissue for testing purposes, tailored to specific patient populations.

What’s more, shifting from animal testing is not only finally possible but may actually be required (if only in certain contexts). This year, both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced plans to reduce such testing. The FDA committed to making animal studies ‘the exception rather than the norm for pre-clinical safety/toxicity testing’ over the next 3-5 years…

As encouraging as this shift may be, its success hinges upon whether and how well these animal-free alternatives actually work. Their utility is likely to play out differently across biomedicine. In some areas of biomedical research, such as safety screenings for shampoos or laundry detergents, petri dishes of human cells are already sufficient to determine whether a chemical is harmful or beneficial.

But in others, such as the search for treatments for neurological diseases, even the most advanced tools cannot accurately recapitulate the complexity of a living body. To truly transform the massive animal research industry, we’ll need to be honest about NAMs’ limitations — and our own.”

From Asimov Press.