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There’s an opportunity here in the less regulated pet health space: flip the pipeline around and treat it like a staging environment for human healthcare, rathe

There’s an opportunity here in the less regulated pet health space: flip the pipeline around and treat it like a staging environment for human healthcare, rather than a place to expand treatments later to extend ROI. One example: glucose monitors for pets lag a generation or two behind glucose monitors for humans. Releasing a human glucose monitor requires lots of testing and certification. Starting in the pet space and then expanding into humans would allow you to iterate faster than your human health care first competitors.

gen220 4y ago
There are definitely companies and investors thinking/working in this space. They think if you can demonstrate an ability solve X in “staging” it has a chance to transfer to “prod”. It works better for some things (generally, simpler/smaller and deterministic things) than others. Practically speaking, the human health space is heavily regulated, and the costs associated with compliance are high. Intuitively, to me, there are not many health-specific innovations that one can discover in pet care that will lead to reduced costs in human care. Because most costs are not technologically-induced, rather they’re regulatory or bureaucratic. You can iterate towards a better mouse trap in pet-land, but the time and financial costs of getting that mouse trap FDA-approved do not magically go away, and unfortunately human care is not a very free market, so being a 10x better mousetrap is not enough to break through. The human healthcare market is also stupidly bigger than the pet care space, like 100x depending on what you include in each category. So if you’re after the big bucks, which most investors / investees are, it’s still generally worth it to target humans first. That being said, some are seeing pets as an angle because human stuff is proving so hard and slow-going, they’re willing to experiment with any potential shortcuts. Worked in human health and pet health.
- ben_w 4y ago
  One thing I've been wondering about recently is SENS for pets. Lab rats can already be given extreme longevity, but I suspect there are plenty of dog owners who would pay a lot for double or treble life expectancy for their pets, especially as the lab rat with that treatment (reportedly) spent their years close to the peak of fitness.
  - gen220 4y ago
    There’s at least one company I knows of whose long term target is human life extension, and they’re bootstrapping with pets [1]. Personally I’m bearish on the whole notion of life extension writ large so I don’t know much about them, but it does exist! [1]: https://www.lifespan.io/news/new-harvard-startup-wants-to-reverse-aging-in-dogs-and-then-humans/ https://www.lifespan.io/news/new-harvard-startup-wants-to-re...
- MrFantastic 4y ago
  Human healthcare has 3rd parties subsidizing the bills. This makes consumers price immune. Plus most surgeons can't tell you accurately how much the total bill with be because insurers pay different rates for same procedure. Vets are mostly out of pocket payments.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
robwwilliams 4y ago
Most of experimental medical research fits your model and is usually called “basic” or “preclinical research”. This is well regulated by federal laws and guidelines (and hassled relentlessly ironically by non-Vegan PETA members). Much of the progress in medicine is driven by this basic and preclinical work—-from brewer’s yeast to mice, rats, and monkeys. If anyone suggests that experimental research using animals has not delivered over the last 100 years please do not just roll your eyes. Tell them that they are flat-out wrong. Almost every disease or human condition has useful animal models—yes even dyslexia and schizophrenia. One exception—-gun-ownership mania.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > One exception—-gun-ownership mania. I know it's not what you meant, but I seem to remember a short clip of some idiots giving a monkey (or was it a chimp?) what looked to my unskilled eyes like an AK-47.
  - danielvf 4y ago
    That clip was a viral marketing campaign video created for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. https://www.adweek.com/creativity/movie-teaser-reminds-you-not-give-ak-47-chimpanzee-133378/ https://www.adweek.com/creativity/movie-teaser-reminds-you-n...
    - ben_w 4y ago
      I think that might have been it, yes. Nicely done, even now it doesn't feel CGI.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  I read it as "if you want to build health products start building products for animals because it's not regulated and you get to iterate/develop fast"
- zeckalpha 4y ago
  As a former caretaker of a diabetic pet, I wish that had an measurable impact on the quality of care in the pet space, but it doesn’t.
vasco 4y ago
This comment really puts the whole "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" saying in perspective.
didntknowya 4y ago
there's not many specialised glucose monitor for animals. it's not feasible for manufacturers to release products just for one species or test for every breed of dogs. we use continuous blood glucose monitors (made for humans) which can take wireless readings through a skin implant. they do well in animals (once you shave the fur). there are papers that confirm human glucometer readings correlate with an animal's blood glucose- so many clinics use human glucometers.
- zeckalpha 4y ago
  I think you are illustrating my point rather than refuting it. A new company could introduce a pet CGM with less barrier to entry than a human first company for the reasons you list.

gen220 4y ago

There are definitely companies and investors thinking/working in this space. They think if you can demonstrate an ability solve X in “staging” it has a chance to transfer to “prod”. It works better for some things (generally, simpler/smaller and deterministic things) than others. Practically speaking, the human health space is heavily regulated, and the costs associated with compliance are high. Intuitively, to me, there are not many health-specific innovations that one can discover in pet care that will lead to reduced costs in human care. Because most costs are not technologically-induced, rather they’re regulatory or bureaucratic. You can iterate towards a better mouse trap in pet-land, but the time and financial costs of getting that mouse trap FDA-approved do not magically go away, and unfortunately human care is not a very free market, so being a 10x better mousetrap is not enough to break through. The human healthcare market is also stupidly bigger than the pet care space, like 100x depending on what you include in each category. So if you’re after the big bucks, which most investors / investees are, it’s still generally worth it to target humans first. That being said, some are seeing pets as an angle because human stuff is proving so hard and slow-going, they’re willing to experiment with any potential shortcuts. Worked in human health and pet health.

ben_w 4y ago
One thing I've been wondering about recently is SENS for pets. Lab rats can already be given extreme longevity, but I suspect there are plenty of dog owners who would pay a lot for double or treble life expectancy for their pets, especially as the lab rat with that treatment (reportedly) spent their years close to the peak of fitness.
- gen220 4y ago
  There’s at least one company I knows of whose long term target is human life extension, and they’re bootstrapping with pets [1]. Personally I’m bearish on the whole notion of life extension writ large so I don’t know much about them, but it does exist! [1]: https://www.lifespan.io/news/new-harvard-startup-wants-to-reverse-aging-in-dogs-and-then-humans/ https://www.lifespan.io/news/new-harvard-startup-wants-to-re...
MrFantastic 4y ago
Human healthcare has 3rd parties subsidizing the bills. This makes consumers price immune. Plus most surgeons can't tell you accurately how much the total bill with be because insurers pay different rates for same procedure. Vets are mostly out of pocket payments.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

robwwilliams 4y ago

Most of experimental medical research fits your model and is usually called “basic” or “preclinical research”. This is well regulated by federal laws and guidelines (and hassled relentlessly ironically by non-Vegan PETA members). Much of the progress in medicine is driven by this basic and preclinical work—-from brewer’s yeast to mice, rats, and monkeys. If anyone suggests that experimental research using animals has not delivered over the last 100 years please do not just roll your eyes. Tell them that they are flat-out wrong. Almost every disease or human condition has useful animal models—yes even dyslexia and schizophrenia. One exception—-gun-ownership mania.

ben_w 4y ago
> One exception—-gun-ownership mania. I know it's not what you meant, but I seem to remember a short clip of some idiots giving a monkey (or was it a chimp?) what looked to my unskilled eyes like an AK-47.
- danielvf 4y ago
  That clip was a viral marketing campaign video created for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. https://www.adweek.com/creativity/movie-teaser-reminds-you-not-give-ak-47-chimpanzee-133378/ https://www.adweek.com/creativity/movie-teaser-reminds-you-n...
  - ben_w 4y ago
    I think that might have been it, yes. Nicely done, even now it doesn't feel CGI.
moonchrome 4y ago
I read it as "if you want to build health products start building products for animals because it's not regulated and you get to iterate/develop fast"
zeckalpha 4y ago
As a former caretaker of a diabetic pet, I wish that had an measurable impact on the quality of care in the pet space, but it doesn’t.

vasco 4y ago

This comment really puts the whole "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" saying in perspective.

didntknowya 4y ago

there's not many specialised glucose monitor for animals. it's not feasible for manufacturers to release products just for one species or test for every breed of dogs. we use continuous blood glucose monitors (made for humans) which can take wireless readings through a skin implant. they do well in animals (once you shave the fur). there are papers that confirm human glucometer readings correlate with an animal's blood glucose- so many clinics use human glucometers.

zeckalpha 4y ago
I think you are illustrating my point rather than refuting it. A new company could introduce a pet CGM with less barrier to entry than a human first company for the reasons you list.