The research behind Zenrelia

During this interview with dvm360, Mara Tugel, DVM, veterinary technical marketing-companion animal therapeutics for Elanco, explained the research that was done prior to the approval of Zenrelia in the United States and Europe.

Throughout the interview, Tugel provides a break down of the results for the 2 studies conducted within the United States and 1 in Europe to shed some light on how Zenrelia presented within those studies, the subjects, and just an overall view of the process for Zenrelia's approval, including a test comparing it to Apoquel.

Below is a partial transcript

Mara Tugel, DVM: As part of the European submission, we conducted a large clinical trial that was a head to head non-inferiority study with occlusitonib or Apoquel. This was done in client-owned dogs, and it was a blinded, masked, randomized study across 25 different clinical sites in Europe. What we found in that study was that once daily dosing of Zeneralia was as effective as Aqoquel dosed twice daily for 14 days and then once daily. Additionally, there were similar rates of adverse events between treatment groups, and that once daily Zenrelia dose helped minimize the opportunity for rebound pruritus, or that little bump in itch that we can see when the Apoquel doses decreased from twice daily to once daily.

Finally, in the continuation phase of that study, we actually found really promising results for pruritus reduction and the potential to get dogs back to what we consider clinical remission or normal with a pruritus visual analog scale (PVAS) score of less than 2. So this is a PVAS score of less than 2, and that's really what dermatologists are starting to talk about as setting a new standard for treatment in dogs with atopic dermatitis in general.