Weight loss drugs are being tested on overweight cats, starting with about 70

Two US biotechnology companies have begun testing experimental GLP-1 treatments in overweight cats, among the first attempts to bring this drug class into pet medicine. A Cornell study sponsored by Akston Biosciences will follow about 70 overweight or obese cats on a once weekly therapy for roughly three months, while OKAVA Pharmaceuticals tests an implant design built to release medicine for up to six months, in a trial named MEOW-1.

Cats are the hard case in a problem veterinarians know well. Of the animals evaluated by US veterinary professionals in 2022, 61% of cats and 59% of dogs were overweight or obese, and unlike a dog, a cat cannot be walked further, rarely accepts new food and is hard to medicate on a schedule. Both programs are early stage trials rather than the consulting room, with top line results expected later this year.

Price is the part nobody has solved. Veterinary care is paid almost entirely out of pocket, and a Morgan Stanley analyst calls it the most overhyped idea in the field to assume pet obesity drugs will match the human GLP-1 market on uptake and pricing. Nearer term growth, he expects, comes from weight management programs, prescription diets and the conditions that travel with obesity, not from a standalone GLP-1 implant market.

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