How Many Monoclonal Ab Disasters Does it Take?

Before we tell Big Pharma to shut it down?

A kind reader just shared an FDA “Dear Veterinarian” letter with me regarding Librela, yet another Zoetis disaster, hard on the heels of Apoquel (which you’d better watch out for).

This monoclonal ab was made to “control pain” from arthritis in dogs. FDA approved its release just last year.

It’s an “anti-nerve growth factor” and maybe you’d guess, turn off a nerve growth factor and you might just have some ramifications… involving, well, nerves.

Oops.

Now the side effects have become apparent and they are notifying vets of them:

• ataxia (wobbly walking, drunken look to the gait)

• seizures

• other neurologic signs, including but not limited to,

  • paresis (paralysis of parts)

  • recumbency (down, can’t rise)

  • urinary incontinence (yikes, where are the diapers, dear?)

• polyuria, and polydipsia (heavy urination + drinking gobs of water)

Anything to worry about, then?

In some cases, death (including euthanasia) was reported as an outcome of these adverse events.

Oh, dayum.

So, Yanking It Off the Market, Right?

Nope. The FDA, toothless to the extreme in its latter days, is calling on vets to report the ill effects of this drug to Zoetis.

Or, if that’s too embarrassing (or unlikely to provoke anything better than a canned response), they can report them to the FDA.

And they’ll, umm, you know, file them and um, “be in touch,” heheh.

I haven’t dug into this drug, as homeopathy was always aces for joint health, but what do you want to bet the “safety studies” prior to coming to market were all done in house at Zoetis?

Get out Your 10 Foot Pole

If this drug is in your possession, I’d stop it immediately.

Nerves are generally important and here’s yet another short-sighted example of Big Pharma tweaking Nature to bad effect.

Let us know in the comments if you’d tried this drug in your own dog and what you’ve seen.

Yeesh.