A startup unleashes longer lives for our dogs

There are many unfair certainties in life, but chief among them is that we can’t spend as many years with our dogs as we’d like.

The average lifespan for a dog is 10-13 years, depending on its size, and that’s clearly too damn short.

That’s where Loyal comes in: The canine longevity startup just closed a $22m fundraising round, bringing its total investments to $150m+.

• Loyal’s first product slated for approval is LOY-002, a daily tablet for dogs ages 10+ and weighing 14+ pounds.
• The pills target metabolic dysfunction — a main underlying cause of aging — to reduce the chance and severity of age-associated diseases.

• LOY-002 just cleared the FDA’s “reasonable expectation of effectiveness” requirement , moving the company one step closer to approval.

Teaching old dogs new tricks isn’t Loyal’s only goal: The startup is also developing LOY-001 and LOY-003, a long-acting injectable and a daily pill for larger dog breeds — which have as little as half the lifespan of smaller dogs.

Once it’s FDA-approved, the company’s revenue would come through veterinarians writing prescriptions for its products.

Long live doggos 

Since American consumers spent an estimated $150.6B on their pets in 2024, there are other pet health startups trying to fetch big profits:

• Embark, a DNA testing company for dogs, has raised ~$94m in funding to assess health risks and recently released a line of supplements.
• German startup Mammaly is focused entirely on supplements, with longevity products that promise to promote cell renewal and protect against damage.

And a growing group of startups are promising to keep pets healthier through customized, human-grade food.

Interestingly…

… learning how to extend the lives of our beloved dogs might also help us live longer. Or at least, that’s Loyal’s thinking.

The startup’s CEO, Celine Halioua, told TechCrunch that since humans and dogs share environmental factors — and sometimes even the same diet — their aging diseases can be similar.

To be clear: We only want to be immortal if our good boys and girls can be, too.