In just a few years, drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro have gone from being discreet treatments for diabetes to become a great social phenomenon. His promise—lose weight through a simple weekly injection—has opened a new chapter in human medicine. Now, this pharmacological revolution is beginning to expand beyond people: cats could be the next to receive an adapted version of these treatments.
Goodbye fat cats. Okava Pharmaceuticals, a San Francisco company dedicated to chronic diseases in companion animals, has started a pioneering clinical trial called MEOW-1whose objective is to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of OKV-119, a subdermal implant capable of releasing exenatide—a GLP-1 agonist—sustained for months in overweight or obese cats.
The intervention aims to simplify a treatment that, in humans, usually requires weekly injections. Here, everything comes down to a single gesture. “You insert the capsule under the skin, and six months later you come back, and the cat has lost weight. It’s like magic,” says Chen Gilor, the veterinarian responsible for the study. speaking to the New York Times.
A pioneering study. Okava’s interests did not arise out of nowhere. Prior to MEOW-1, the company evaluated prototypes of the implant in two preliminary studies. A work published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science demonstrated that the OKV-119 implant could be easily implanted and removed, that it was well tolerated, and that its plasma levels of exenatide correlated with weight reduction in healthy cats for more than one month.
Subsequently, research published in BMC Veterinary Research delved into this line: they implanted five cats with the designed prototype for 84 days, what they observed is that during that period stable levels of exenatide were maintained and four of them reduced at least 5% of their body weight, along with a lower caloric intake. These results motivated the move to a trial in real obese cats, which Okava plans to run this summer. According to the companyMEOW-1 will be the first formal feline weight loss study based on GLP-1 agonists.
How does the implant work? OKV-119 uses the NanoPortal platformdeveloped by Vivani Medical. According to scientific studiesthis technology uses: a titanium reservoir, a membrane with nanotubes that regulate the passage of the drug, and a system designed to ensure a constant and prolonged release without pronounced peaks.
Furthermore, this type of administration allows us to overcome the main difficulty associated with GLP-1 in veterinary medicine: lack of adherence. Studies indicate that giving repeated injections to a cat is complex, stressful and can drastically reduce the continuity of treatment, ithe same as what happens in people with injectable drugs. The implant seeks to solve that problem with an approach one-and-done: a subdermal insertion in a veterinary office, without daily intervention by the caregiver.
According to The New York Timesthere are veterinarians who already use human GLP-1 agonists off-label in diabetic cats, but its cost and need for frequent administration limit its use. Hence the relevance of a device that could keep the medication active for half a year.
But only in cats? Although MEOW-1 focuses exclusively on felines, Okava and Vivani have confirmed an expansion of the project to dogs, another species with obesity rates greater than 50% in the United States. The company states that its goal is to reproduce in dogs the metabolic effects observed in cats: improved insulin sensitivity, reduction in fat mass and greater energy efficiency. With the expectation that these changes may even promote healthier aging.
With both markets, the commercial potential is evident. According to estimates collected in Xatakathe global human obesity drug sector could exceed $100 billion by 2030. Veterinary medicine would be a new frontier.
Feline obesity is a global epidemic. The interest in an “Ozempic for cats” is not a whim. It is an answer to a growing problem. A review published in Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery places the prevalence of feline overweight between 40% and 63%, although it continues to increase. When you ask veterinariansthe same patterns almost always appear: cats that live exclusively indoors, very little movement, food available all day, too many treats, sterilization and a very common problem: many owners are not aware that their cat is gaining weight.
The consequences are not minor: insulin resistance, diabetes, joint problems, urinary diseases, anesthetic complications and liver disorders, in addition to a reduction in life expectancy. And the latest evidence goes even further. A proteomic analysis that evaluated 288 proteins in cats with obesity found important changes in inflammatory processes, in the complement system, in coagulation pathways and in lipid metabolism. In other words, feline obesity affects the entire organism, it is not just a “fat cat.”
Many open questions. Although MEOW-1 is moving forward with positive expectations, mass adoption of an “Ozempic for cats” is far from a fact. The first unknown is the price. In humans, GLP-1 cost several hundred euros a month, and it is not clear whether a semi-annual release veterinary implant will really be affordable for the majority of caregivers. Cost could become the main barrier to entry, especially considering that feline obesity is a common problem, but not always perceived as a health priority.
The second uncertainty has to do with the available scientific evidence. So far, studies on OKV-119 have been preliminary and with extremely small samples (between 5 and 15 cats). They work, yes, but we still don’t know what will happen on a large scale, or how animals with diseases or in varied home environments will respond.
Finally, there is the question of scientific independence. For now, all published studies on OKV-119 come from teams linked to Okava or Vivani, the companies developing the implant. There is no independent, large-scale evidence, and this matches a pattern already observed in human GLP-1where much of the initial research is driven by the industry itself.
A new era in feline medicine? The questions surrounding this new milestone in the treatment of feline obesity are piling up: will these preliminary results be enough to justify regulatory approval? Will caregivers change their relationship with the feeding of their animals? And what will it mean in the long term to pharmacologically intervene in the appetite and metabolism of a living being whose health depends almost entirely on its domestic living conditions?
Answers will come with the results of MEOW-1 and subsequent trials. For now, the truth is that “Ozempic for cats” is no longer a futuristic idea, but rather an ongoing experiment whose evolution could transform the way we understand the metabolic health of companion animals.
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