My Mission

Help dogs live longer, healthier lives

Dogs and humans share a special bond — we’ve coevolved alongside each other for millenia, sharing homes and meals and becoming great companions. Sadly, dogs’ lives are much shorter than humans’. And larger dogs have an even shorter lifespan. While some small breeds can live for more than 15 or 16 years, many larger dogs can live for less than 10 years.

My company is developing several drugs that help dogs live longer lives, giving them more healthy and quality time with their families.

To do this, we are working with the FDA—the federal agency in charge of drug approvals for animals and humans—to get longevity drugs approved for dogs, and to learn a lot about aging in the process. Because if we can figure out how to extend a dog’s life, we can use those insights to help other species to live longer, healthier lives, too.

My Path

DPhil drop-out dog-lover turned biotech entrepreneur

My path to starting a pharma company developing dog longevity drugs wasn’t a straight one. As an undergrad at UT Austin, I worked in labs on campus and at research institutes in the summer, eventually graduating with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. From there, I went to the University of Oxford to study healthcare economics, though eventually dropped out to work at a longevity VC fund.

The idea for my company Loyal came out of one of my research projects at the VC fund. We had learned that a hormone called IGF-1 was related to aging in big dogs: more IGF-1 means they grow bigger but also age faster. That was the original idea behind Loyal: develop a drug that reduces IGF-1 in big dogs, allowing them to age slower and live longer.

While on a camping trip, I joked to an investor that I knew how to make their dog live longer. That casual conversation ultimately led me to raise an initial $5M in funding for my company, Loyal. In 2019, at age 25, I found the problem I wanted to own: helping dogs live longer, healthier lives.