Anti-Aging Pill for Dogs Certified as 'Effective' by FDA. But Could It Work for Humans, Too?

Mar. 15, 2025

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A new anti-aging pill for dogs is one step closer to being on the market.

Loyal, a biotech startup company that develops drugs for dogs,announcedon Wednesday, Feb. 26, that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has certified its new medication as having “reasonable expectation of efficacy.”

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.

A cheerful, red dog sits next to his lair on the floor and looks into the lens, via Getty.Getty

The pill has certain limitations, though. The company noted that it could give canines a minimum of one extra year of healthy life.

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“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.”

“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.

Tom Rando, director of the University of California’s Broad Stem Cell Research Center, toldThe Guardianthat the research emerging on lengthening a species' lifespan is “fascinating” and could provide a “piece in the puzzle” when it comes to learning more about “human longevity.”

“The more human the animal gets that we can test our longevity drugs on, the more confidence we can have that these drugs will work on humans too,” Rando said. “And having evidence of efficacy and safety in dogs gives us more confidence for doing human studies with these same drugs.”

source: people.com