The announcement was followed by an avalanche of missives. Letters signed with photos, turned-up lips, wet nostrils piling up in Loyal’s premises, as if Snoopy, Rocky, Médor and the others had been able to read the press release published last November 28 by the firm. The San Francisco-based start-up, previously unknown, announced that it would be able to offer “additional years of good health” to certain dogs thanks to simple injections.
A banal speech in a Silicon Valley prone to the craziest promises, except that this one seems on the verge of coming true: the company explains in the same text that the Food and Drug Administration, the American drug policeman, has validated its effectiveness data. “This is the very first formal acceptance that a therapy can be developed and approved to slow aging,” notes the company.
Loyal must now demonstrate the safety of its product, which is far from being a formality. But the company considers that this first green light given by the FDA opens the way to the arrival of anti-aging therapies, long considered science fiction. “We hope that the first dogs concerned will be able to obtain them from 2026,” explains Céline Halioua, the founder of Loyal.
Fundraising of more than $38 million
If placed on the market, the molecule developed by Loyal, LOY-001, would become the first treatment directly targeting the mechanisms of aging, these various “failures” which accumulate with age in cells and deteriorate them. Until now, only diseases resulting from it have been targeted. Even in humans, this research is not as successful, although it has been booming in recent years.
Former molecular biologist, Céline Halioua founded Loyal in 2019, when laboratories in the sector discovered one after the other that it was possible, at least in laboratory animals, to slow down and reverse aging. Various recent experiments have thus “rejuvenated“worms and mice on command, by modifying their genes or injecting them with substances that act on various cellular dysfunctions.
Favoring our faithful companions while many American start-ups set out to obtain an elixir of this type for their masters, Loyal managed to carve out a place for itself in the sector, raising more than 38 million dollars. A significant figure for animal therapies. Enough to set up proper tests. No ambitious experimental protocol had until now been put in place, aging having long been considered inevitable.
Neither the price nor the composition of LOY-001 – an injection to be repeated at least twice a year – have been detailed. But its mechanism of action is well known: “LOY-001 aims to remedy the surplus of the growth hormone IGF-1”, summarizes Céline Halioua. The substance, known to accentuate aging in adults, is produced in very large quantities in large dogs, which limits their life expectancy. Selection after selection in breeding farms, large dogs have in fact been built to gain mass. In particular, they produce 30 times more of the growth hormone IGF-1 than smaller breeds. “This difference is explained by the presence of certain genes, very useful for growing quickly, but very deleterious afterwards, because they accelerate the glycation of cells, a form of deterioration caused by the sugars consumed which the body struggles to repair with the “age”, explains Thomas Derrien, veterinarian at the Institute of Genetics and Development in Rennes.
Thus, the largest dog breeds live on average half as long as the smallest, with a few exceptions – pugs and bulldogs are small, but so are their noses, which handicaps them. Also present in humans, these genes would have persisted in our species despite their impact on life expectancy because the selective pressure operates mainly on the attributes which allow us to reach reproductive age alive, old age. therefore being relatively less “adapted” on a genetic level.
Dogs and humans share certain biological clocks
From Rennes, Thomas Derrien is participating in one of the main studies on canine aging in France, in partnership with Centrale Canine. The genome of 27 breeds is analyzed to understand the consequences of crossbreeding and provide the keys to avoiding the most deleterious effects. “Thanks to recent technological advances, we no longer look only at single mutations, but at much larger sequences which affect development and aging,” adds Benoit Hédan, bioinformatician, member of the study.
Although exclusively intended for animal welfare, all this work is closely watched by scientists who work on medicines for humans. First trials targeting similar mechanisms of aging will be organized in 2024: “It is clear that human mechanisms could be applied to domestic animals, and vice versa,” indicates James Kirkland, director of research on aging at the Mayo Clinic, an American hospital group.
A study published in 2022 in the scientific journal PNAS notably showed that dogs and humans share certain biological clocks, molecular markers of age, recently discovered on the sidelines of fundamental work on aging. Some allow cells to know where they are in their activity. Others result from age-related deterioration, which we have learned to decipher. Scientists plan to act on it, to reverse the mechanics of time.
Loyal is not the only player in this young sector. Also in the running, Animal Bioscience targets two other mechanisms of aging that we share with dogs: the drop in ATP, a type of cellular fuel that the body converts from sugars, and the appearance of senescent cells, cells which no longer divide but which refuse to die and clutter the body if they are not cleaned. Many molecules seem to act on these aging factors.
Treat certain illnesses
Animal Bioscience must currently recruit more dogs to meet clinical trial standards. But it has a charming asset with investors: its founder, Nick Sinclair, is none other than the brother of David Sinclair, a researcher at Harvard and one of the most prominent scientists in aging, since he gave back sight to blind mice by reprogramming the cells of their optic nerve. The feat earned him the front page of the scientific journal Nature in 2020. Since then, he has continued to demonstrate that acting on cellular age is possible, at least in animals.
Another such initiative, a group of researchers and veterinarians called The Dog Aging Project is trying to bring together enough dogs to test a molecule with effects potentially analogous to LOY-001, rapamycin. Authorized in France since the 2000s as an immunosuppressant, it could also contain the aging effects of certain genes and is one of the great therapeutic hopes for humans. Thanks to it, in the laboratory, old mice run like young ones again.
In addition to seeing their abilities decline more quickly with age, large dogs are also subject to numerous pathologies, particularly due to excessive inbreeding, the researchers explain. Loyal hopes to be able to act against the phenomenon and reduce, for example, their risk of developing cancer, thanks to another drug (LOY-002). They too could arrive very quickly, “as early as 2025” in the United States, according to Céline Halioua. This is one of the other great promises of longevity research: treating the diseases of aging, in addition to age-related decline. The dawn of a revolution, canine and human.
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