Translating human pharma innovation into animal health breakthroughs

As someone who has had the privilege of working in both human pharma and animal health, I am inspired daily by the remarkable innovations that science and our scientific community deliver. These breakthroughs are often transformative for people and animals. Yet innovation to address diseases in animals, particularly in therapeutics, often moves at a slower pace. Significant unmet need remains in many areas where human pharma science has already delivered important breakthroughs for patients. 

I’m fortunate to work in one of the few companies that has extensive expertise in both human and animal science. All our R&D efforts are aimed at making new discoveries and improving lives. Learning from each other makes it easier to achieve that goal. With around 10,000 colleagues working in human pharma R&D and another 1,300 in animal health R&D, our combined expertise gives us significant research power and a huge opportunity to innovate. This distinctive environment provides valuable diversity of thought – as well as expertise – and gives us a unique scientific perspective that means we not only understand the synergies and potential of advancing human pharma science in animal health, we can also put these synergies into practice. 

Delivering innovation through shared knowledge

People and animals have many diseases and disease mechanisms in common. One of those diseases is diabetes. This is one of the most common endocrine disorders in cats. Like their human counterparts, factors such as being overweight and having a less active lifestyle play an important role. If left untreated, diabetes can be fatal, but disease management is complex and can be daunting for cat owners who have to cope with appropriate feeding, glucose monitoring and administering twice-daily injections. 

Last year, we delivered a breakthrough therapeutic as a result of working together with our human pharma colleagues who have deep expertise in cardiometabolic diseases. Their work has resulted in several innovations for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Our goal was to discover a simple and convenient solution that would improve the lives for both cats and their owners. 

Shared diseases and disease mechanisms

We’ve been able to share knowledge about disease mechanisms, chemistry, compounds, and techniques, and explore whether and how molecular compounds used in human medicines could be adapted to improve the health of cats. 

More than 10 years of cooperation have resulted in the development and launch of the first once-daily, liquid, orally-administered prescription medication to improve glycemic control in cats with diabetes mellitus. This makes treating feline diabetes simple and convenient for both cats and their owners, who can easily administer the treatment either directly into the cat’s mouth or with a small amount of food.

This is just the most recent example of successful collaborations with our human pharma colleagues. Results of previous cooperation include treatments for chronic valvular disease in dogs, chronic kidney disease in cats, and pain management in cats and dogs.

Maximizing human and animal health synergies

Leveraging this combined expertise allows us to maximize synergies so we can do the best job possible for both our human and animal patients. In animal health, we see the biggest potential for collaboration in pet therapeutics. Cancer research is one of the main areas where there are important opportunities. We see similar genetic changes at work in humans and dogs when tumors emerge. This means that any new treatments that our human pharma research colleagues develop in the fight against cancer, could also benefit dogs.

We’re also sharing knowledge in other key areas such as immune disorders, anxiety, and stress, anticipating the potential to deliver advances in these important areas of unmet need.

I know that science, and particularly innovative science, takes a long time. At Boehringer Ingelheim, we’ve seen how learning from each other can accelerate innovation in both human and animal health. Our continued success in addressing unmet needs in animal health relies heavily not only on internal collaboration but also on working with external partners, both in animal health and human pharma, who bring valuable new ideas and new science to our collective innovation journey. This is why we are constantly looking for new partners, to expand our growing innovation network of more than 250 partnerships.

I’ll be at the BIO International Convention in San Diego – joining over 20,000 industry colleagues from across the globe. This is the most important partnering event of the year and I’ll be on the lookout for new partners – from both animal health and human pharma – to help turn the tide on some of these areas of unmet need. Let’s work together to accelerate innovation and deliver the much-needed breakthroughs that could transform the lives of animals.

Share your ideas with us!

If you’re working on a human pharma project, your pre-clinical data and animal models could provide valuable insights. You may also have backup assets that could have potential in animal health. We are open to a conversation and encourage you to think of your assets in a holistic way, with potential relevance to both humans and animals.

• Contact our partnering team: Animal Health Partnering Contacts

• Submit your partnering proposal by visiting our Animal Health Partnering Portal