>90% of all new therapeutics fail in clinical trials despite promising laboratory data, creating widespread demand for alternative approaches that can better inform on clinical translation

OUR
approach

Comparative Translational Medicine

There is rapidly growing demand for Comparative Translational Medicine, but this field remains largely concentrated within a few dozen US Colleges of Veterinary Medicine.  One Medicine Group, LLC provides Arizona's bioscience community a CTM resource, leveraging veterinary medicine and companion animals with naturally occurring diseases shared with humans.

Key Benefits

01: acquisition of real-world clinical data in naturally occurring diseases that are highly comparable to humans
02: provides veterinary patients access to new therapies and procedures
03: expands market opportunities for companies seeking to enter the multi-billion dollar animal health market

CANINE
comparative diseases

comparative medicine and translational research

Companion dogs naturally develop >100 diseases with molecular, cellular, physiological and clinical homology to humans, co-exist with people and have equivalent exposures.  Comparative medicine overcomes the limitations of artificial laboratory models, gaining widespread interest across the research community as a more reliable means of advancing medical innovations.

Comparative medicine has helped to elucidate disease underpinnings that are highly translational to humans, notably in areas such as:

Comparative oncology:
NIH Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium
NCI Integrated Canine Data Commons.
Aging: Dog Aging Project.

Veterinary Clinical Studies and Common Comparative Disease Areas

Veterinary clinical studies are ethically advantageous, avoiding the need to artificially induce diseases while maximizing translational relevance on designing human clinical trials.  Veterinary clinical studies are also performed very similar to human studies and may help to reduce the time and cost associated with bringing new therapies to market.

Autoimmune: systemic lupus, pemphigus, myasthenia gravis, and autoimmune anemia.
Cardiovascular: dilative & hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and congestive heart failure.
Dermatology: atopic & allergic dermatitis, skin infections, and trauma.
Gastrointestinal: inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, and hepatopathies.
Infectious Disease: systemic mycosis (coccidioidomycosis, histoplasmosis, blastomycosis), bacterial and viral infections.
Neurological: cognitive dysfunction, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, degenerative myelopathy, spinal cord injury, and degenerative disc disease.
Oncology: lymphoma, osteosarcoma, melanoma, mammary adenocarcinoma, glioblastoma, squamous cell carcinoma and other neoplastic diseases.
Ophthalmology: keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye), glaucoma, corneal surface diseases, retinal atropy, and cataracts.
Orthopedics: osteoarthritis, meniscal injury, cranial cruciate disease, and osteochondrosis dessicans.

VIDEOS
on comparative medicine

Veterinary medicine has a rich history of advancing human and animal health in parallel, but remains an underutilized approach in translational research.  Below are a few videos explaining how veterinary medicine is helping to advance the field of comparative translational medicine.

What veterinarians know that physicians don't. 
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz MD: TEDMED Dec 4, 2014

Cancer treatments for dogs could also lead to breakthroughs for humans.
60 Minutes: YouTube: Mar 12, 2023

Unleashing Comparative Oncology: Cancer Moonshot Progress Video Series
National Cancer Institute: Youtube

Biological Parallels Between Companion Animal and Human Pain Disesase
NC State Veterinary Medicine: YouTube Video

ARTICLES
on comparative medicine

Comparative Medicine Articles