There is growing interest in prescription medicines for dogs by the country’s leading pharmaceutical manufacturers. Why? Because dog owners spend millions of dollars every year to keep their canine companions healthy.

Drug companies known for marketing human medications such as Pfizer, Novartis, Schering-Plough, and Wyeth also have animal health divisions. Eli Lilly & Co. recently announced its entry into the pet market. These companies have made a big investment in research and development for dogs and cats medicines and vaccines.

Pfizer Animal Health apportioned about $270 million in 2005. Intervet allots 10% of sales to R&D, and Merial spends 6-10%. R&D spending at company divisions that focus on drugs for people generally ranges from 10 to 20% of sales, according to an article in Chemical and Engineering News, June 2007.

Drug companies have found that some drugs developed for people can also help their pets. And, conversely but to a lesser extent, some medications developed for dogs can end up being medications for people. Examples of drugs moving from humans to dogs include:

* Yarvitan, the world's first drug for managing dog obesity.

* Cerenia, the first drug to treat acute vomiting in dogs and to prevent vomiting caused by motion sickness during car rides or chemotherapy.

* Reconcile, the drug treats separation anxiety and contains fluoxetine, the active ingredient in the company's blockbuster antidepressant Prozac.

* In May, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica (Germany) received approval for Vetmedin, the first drug approved by FDA in more than 10 years to treat canine congestive heart failure.

* Eli Lilly received FDA approval in April to market its first drug for dogs. Called Merial, a joint venture between Merck and Sanofi-Aventis, gained conditional approval from the Department of Agriculture for a melanoma cancer vaccine for dogs.

Many animal drugs result from treatments for humans, but humans have also benefited from drugs originally created for animals at least in the case of the worming medication ivermectin, sold by Merial as Heartgard. It was developed in the 1980s by Merck animal health researchers to prevent heartworms in dogs. Merck subsequently developed ivermectin as Mectizan to treat humans with Mectizan, a tropical worm disease also called "river blindness."

Wyeth, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, is also working on a treat river blindness based on second-generation human formulation of a compound called moxidectin originally developed for dogs by Wyeth's Fort Dodge Animal Health unit.

Big Pharma Chases Dogs And Cats

Posted by Barbara.