Innovation Insights- July 23, 2024
Periodically I’ll share some of the latest developments in animal health including emerging startup companies, noteworthy innovations, trends, and impactful scientific publications. You’ll also get occasional book or podcast recommendations.
I value your input- if you have a newsworthy item or resource you think should be featured, please share it! Let’s keep our finger on the pulse of innovation in animal health together!
*A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks! I’m dividing my list of reading material across two separate newsletters to keep them digestible, so look for another one coming out soon focusing more on scientific publications.
In the News: Summary
Opinion: It’s not just hype. AI could revolutionize diagnosis in medicine
Swedish digital pet care startup raises €20M to expand in US
Veterinary Diagnostics spin-out raises $4 million
Ani.VC launches a fund for pets and first investment in DOG PPL
VC Firm Cultivation Capital Introduces $20 million Agtech fund amid dealflow optimism
Merck Animal Health Completes Acquisition of Elanco’s Aqua Business
Pets Choice expands premium range with acquisition of plant-based petcare brand Hownd
Leap Venture Studio 8th Cohort: A tech treat for the global pet industry
Mars acquires two veterinary diagnostics businesses
Inflexion to sell Yumove brand owner Lintbells
Lab-grown meat set to be sold in UK pet food
Invetx Announces Upcoming Acquisition by Dechra Pharmaceuticals, Global Leader in Animal Health
In The News: Diving Deeper
Opinion: It’s not just hype. AI could revolutionize diagnosis in medicine
- This is a nice and concise opinion piece on the opportunity for AI to advance our diagnostic capabilities.
- Several examples of AI performing better than humans give us a glimpse into the future in which AI models can improve patient care and make diagnosticians faster.
- They do highlight some challenges, namely that AI is expensive and that investors have generally invested less in diagnostics as compared to therapeutics. Insurance is also complicated as early diagnostics may lead to increased healthcare costs.
Swedish digital pet care startup raises €20M to expand in US
- FirstVet is a Swedish telehealth startup that has secured secured €20mn to grow its operations and expand its remote veterinary care services in North America
- The company was founded in 2016 in Stockholm. It is now present in the Nordics, Germany, the UK, and the US.
- Beyond telehealth veterinary services it also offers an online shop and a pet pharmacy in select markets.
Veterinary Diagnostics spin-out raises $4 million
- The Scottish-based veterinary diagnostics company, MI:RNA, secures $4 million in Series A funding.
- MI:RNA develops early disease detection technology for the veterinary market that uses microRNA biomarkers obtained from blood samples.
- Lead investor Novaquest was joined by 7 other investors including Kyoritsu Holdings, VANE, and Animal Health Angels.
- On their website, MI:RNA indicates 3 active projects: Cardiac disease, kidney disease, and progression and prediction, with three projects in the pipeline: Osteosarthritis, cancer, and heartworm.
- Learn more about MI:RNA here
Ani.VC launches a fund for pets and first investment in DOG PPL
- Ani.VC is an early-stage venture fund for pets that will deploy $35 million over the next 3 years in to petcare companies.
- The first investment is into DOG PPL, a canine social club described as a “dog park meets social club”, with locations in Los Angeles and soon launching in New York.
VC Firm Cultivation Capital Introduces $20 million Agtech fund amid dealflow optimism
- Cultivation Capital is a St. Louis-based venture capital firm and is introducing the “Cultivation Capital AgTech Fund IV” for a total offering of $20 million.
- Together with their partner Yield Lab, Cultivation Capital puts capital to work across the agtech spectrum including segments like: crop innovation, animal health, precision ag, sustainability, logistics and food ingredients.
Merck Animal Health Completes Acquisition of Elanco’s Aqua Business
- Merck Animal Health acquires the aqua business of Elanco Animal Health, bolstering Merck’s position in the aqua industry.
- Merck now owns CLYNAV®, a DNA-based vaccine that protects Atlantic salmon against pancreas disease and IMVIXA®, an anti-parasitic sea lice treatment and water treatment products for warm water production, complementing Merck Animal Health’s vaccine portfolio.
Pets Choice expands premium range with acquisition of plant-based petcare brand Hownd
Leap Venture Studio 8th Cohort: A tech treat for the global pet industry
- This is a nice bullet list of six innovative companies that pitched at Leap Venture Studio’s 8th cohort Demo day on June 13. Leap Venture Studio is a venture organization formed in partnership between Mars Petcare and Michelson Found Animals.
Companies that presented include:
Mars acquires two veterinary diagnostics businesses
- Mars has completed its acquisition of two veterinary diagnostic businesses based in France: Cerba Vet and Antagene
- Cerba Vet is a network of 6 veterinary diagnostic laboratories in France. Cerba Vet will be joining the growing worldwide network of Antech hospitals.
- Antagene is a DNA testing company. Remember that Mars already owns Wisdom Panel, a genetic testing service for dogs and cats.
- Both companies will now be part of Mars Petcare’s Science and Diagnostics division, the relatively young division that was formed around Antech Diagnostics and the growing R&D arm of Mars Petcare.
- LEAH labs is developing CAR-T cell therapy for B cell lymphoma in dogs as well as deploying their gene editing technology, GeneWeld, as a platform for high throughput discovery and validation of novel cell therapy.
- This proposal aims to study the dynamics of CAR-T cell therapy in dog patients and B cell lymphoma using live cell imaging.
Inflexion to sell Yumove brand owner Lintbells, generates a 5.5 x return
- The mid-market private equity firm, Inflexion, announces that it plans to sell its investment in Lintbells, a pet supplement company, to Vetnique Labs.
- The sale results in a successful exit for Inflexion Enterprise Fund IV, generating a 5.5 x return.
Lab-grown meat set to be sold in UK pet food
- The UK is the first European country to approve putting lab-grown meat in pet food.
- Given the number of startups in this space, this could be an impactful move that accelerates work in this space.
Invetx Announces Upcoming Acquisition by Dechra Pharmaceuticals, Global Leader in Animal Health
- Invetx creates novel, protein-based animal health therapeutics and has a pipeline of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for chronic illness in dogs and cats.
- The acquisition by Dechra provides entry into the rapidly growing mAb market.
- Other players in the mAb space:
- You might remember that in 2017 Zoetis acquired Nexvet Biopharma, a therapeutics company with a pipeline of monoclonal antibody therapies that were being developed for companion animals, and just year Zoetis acquired Petmedix, a company developing monoclonal antibodies therapeutics.
- As an example of drugs in this space, think Cytopoint and Librela, both made by Zoetis.
- I think the title is sufficient.
Science Stuff
- Digital dog and cat skull database
- Original article: Czeibert, K., Nagy, G., Csörgő, T., Donkó, T., Petneházy, Ö., Csóka, Á., Garamszegi, L. Z., Kolm, N., Kubinyi, E. (2024) High-resolution computed tomographic (HRCT) image series from 413 canid and 18 felid skulls. Scientific Data, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03572-x
- This is a fun and unique project, the kind of project that is only possible because of digitization technological advances and AI opportunities.
- The ELTE Eotvos Lorand University digitised 431 skulls comprised of 152 dog breeds, 9 cat breeds, and 12 wild canine and feline species.
- While impressive, realize that any of the large labs could generate this kind of dataset from just a few days’ submissions. There’s so much image data hanging around out there. Bravo to the folks at ELTE for making this public.
Video Overview of the Digital Dog and Cat Skull Database
Recommended:
- “How to Do Great Work” an essay by Paul Graham
- I recently stumbled up on this philosophical essay by Paul Graham that provides a thoughtful approach to choosing your field, embracing curiosity, and forging a path toward meaningful work.
- I highly recommend grabbing a cup of coffee, a notebook, and blocking off your calendar for a bit to think through this essay. It will jumpstart the paralyzed and energize the already hyper-caffeinated.
From the essay:
“What are you excessively curious about — curious to a degree that would bore most other people? That’s what you’re looking for.”
“Try to finish what you start, though, even if it turns out to be more work than you expected. Finishing things is not just an exercise in tidiness or self-discipline. In many projects a lot of the best work happens in what was meant to be the final stage.”
*****Please note that I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this newsletter, nor do I receive any financial benefit from endorsing them. My interest is purely based on their innovative contributions to the industry.*****
