A NEW LEASH OPN LIFE

What if dogs could live longer and healthier lives? Loyal's CELINE HALIOUA has raised $135 million from top investors to develop canine longevity pills—and expects to get her first conditional approval from the FDA next year.

- AMY FELDMAN

DOGS DON'T LIVE LONG ENOUGH.

The family Lab might make it to 14; bigger beasts like Bernese mountain dogs are lucky to see 9. Celine Halioua thinks they deserve a few more years. A scientist, Oxford Ph.D. dropout and former chief of staff at the first venture capital fund focused on longevity-related biotechs, she has spent the last nearly six years building Loyal, a San Francisco startup developing drugs to delay canine aging by targeting metabolic and hormonal imbalances before they become disease. The company's first beef-flavored longevity pill could hit the market by 2026, potentially extending dogs' lives—and perhaps someday ours as well.

"I realized that to do this in humans would take billions of dollars, patent issues and trauma, but you could do it in dogs," says Halioua, 30, whose own dog, Della, is a senior Rottweiler mix that she adopted three years ago.

Loyal doesn't have any revenue yet, but Halioua is in conversations with the FDA and has cleared early hurdles. Under the agency's conditional approval program for innovative veterinary drugs, Halioua hopes to get the okay to be on the market with its first drug, which changes the metabolism of senior dogs (ages 10 and up) to mimic a low-calorie diet, which has been shown to extend their lives, next year. Loyal also has both a shot and a pill in the works to lengthen large dogs' short lifespans by limiting a growth hormone more prevalent in big dogs than small.

Halioua has raised $135 million in equity (and an additional $20 million in venture debt) from top investors that include Bain Capital, First Round, Khosla Ventures and Valor Equity Partners at a valuation of $425 million.