Kalle Marsal, Chief Operating Officer at PetDx, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how next-generation sequencing technology is being used to detect cancer in pets early.

Cheddar Innovates

How 'PetDx' Uses a Simple Blood Draw to Detect Cancer in Pets Early

Welcome back to cheddar innovates brought to you by curiosity. Stream innovation in cancer detection and treatment options for people have come a long way but the same doesn't apply to cancer in animals. That's why our next guest is bringing innovation into pet care. Using a simple blood draw to detect cancer and pets. Early joining us. Now kelly marshall, chief operating officer at P. D. X. I love talking to you about this kelly. Thank you so much for your time. Walk us through the process of how this works. Very good. Thanks for having me on. Well, it really starts first with realizing that cancer really is a disease of the genome. We tend to think of cancer as being tied to the organ that it's present in like lung or colon or breast but it's inherently a disease of genomic alterations create tumors that are harmful to the body wherever they are, cells constantly released DNA fragments into the bloodstream through natural processes. And that's true for both normal as well as tumor cells. These DNA fragments were called cell free DNA. We now have ways to analyze these through something called next generation sequencing technology or NGS, which has been in use for non invasive prenatal testing for pregnant women for almost a decade. The good news now is that with MGS, we can detect even small concentrations of cell free DNA that came from tumors um by really detecting the many different genomic operations associated with cancer. So when those were found in the cell free DNA, those alterations indicated there's tumor cells in the patient's body and that's really what our core product Uncle Canine does. And the way it works is that a veterinarian does a simple blood draw from a dog ships the sample to us via regular Fedex delivery to our lab. We process the sample and extract the DNA and run it through the MGS machine, which generates over two billion data points for each blood sample, which we then run through very advanced bioinformatics algorithms to analyze whether there's cancer related operations. President. The ankle pain in result is then sent back to the bed. We can share with pet parents whether a cancer signal was found. And if it was found, it means that it's very, very likely there's currently cancer in the dog. Even if they're not showing any signs of. I'm so curious so that they can decide how to treat. I don't mean to interrupt how big of a health problem is cancer and pets compared to humans. It's a it's a very, very big, big issue. Um, it's cancer is by far the single biggest killer in dogs. In fact, if you add up the next five most common causes of death and dogs, you still don't add up to the proportion that die from cancer. Cancer is what kills dogs. Dogs are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than humans in a given year. Out of 90 million pet dogs in the us, there are six million new cancer diagnoses reported every year Compare that to on the human side. We're out of roughly 330 million of us, there's about two million new cancer treatments and diagnosis. And we've made huge strides on the human side in the battle with cancer mortality has gone down by almost 30% in just the last two decades. And there are a lot while there's a lot of exciting innovative treatments. Really. What's made the difference is early detection screening protocols such as mammograms, colonoscopies, P. S. A. Test that's really what what's made a difference And dogs have nothing like that. There's no such screening protocols today until Uncle Qena and so now dogs, especially older dogs, if your dog is over the age of eight, it's seven times as likely to have developed cancer than before the age of eight. So it's right. We really recommend that all dogs age eight or higher than annual screening and then there's predisposed breeds. That should start even earlier boxers, german, shepherds, beagles golden retrievers, Labradors, they all have a much higher predisposition. How does this compare to other cancer detection options for pets right now? And if I can ask you for a price range as well because I'm assuming pet insurance is don't cover this as of yet. Well, actually, there's different use cases for our products. If it's for screening for presumably healthy dogs, they don't cover it yet. But if there's cancer suspected in the dog, then several insurances insurance companies are actually covering our tracks And the veterinary clinics set the price and and so it's we we don't control that. So it's it varies, but it's around $500 today. There really aren't any good cancer detection options for pets. Um The standard of care is regular physical exams and root routine tests such as basic chemistry and your urine analysis. And they're really unlikely to detect cancers unless there's already clear clinical signs. In fact, almost all cancer cases and dogs aren't detected until there are clinical signs, such as if they're hunched over in pain, throwing up blood, losing a lot of weight. Not excited about going for a walk. Dogs can't verbalize their discomfort in the same way that humans can. They've also been trained through evolution not to show pain. So therefore by the time they're typically diagnosed today, it's typically too late. The cancers have progressed so far that there's very few options. And it's that's why you hear that very often when the cancer is dog is diagnosed with cancer, it's very quickly. This is so fascinating. My dog's not eight yet, but I will be looking into this one. He is Callie marshall chief operating officer of Pet DX. Thank you so much for this