No guts, no glory: The microbiome startups working with pets

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Alongside the recent boom in human microbiome research — which has led to an influx of personalised gut health supplements, at-home testing kits and custom nutrition plans — veterinary scientists and pet brands are recognising that the gut microbiome could play a critical role in an animal’s overall wellbeing. 

Here are two of the companies creating smarter, more targeted solutions to nourish pets from the inside out.

Bacteria buddies

Bushra Schuitemaker, London-based gut health test kit startup Biome9’s head of science and research, began her career in drug discovery for human cancers. But her fascination with the biological parallels between human and animal diseases led her to study the microbiomes of poultry and, later, dogs. She views human and animal medicine as deeply interconnected, with the goal of advancing health across species. 

“The way that vets currently treat gastrointestinal issues is very focused on treating the symptoms, but there’s also a little bit of guesswork involved,” Schuitemaker says. “Microbiome testing aims to eliminate that uncertainty by revealing what’s really going on in a dog’s gut ecosystem, because the root cause of chronic or seemingly mysterious symptoms comes back to the microbiome.”

Biome9 was recently acquired by European pet food company Pooch & Mutt, hoping to expand their microbiome analysis to a worldwide audience. Prior to the acquisition, Biome9 claimed to be the UK’s first gut health startup for dogs and raised more than £1m from investors such as the CEO of Pets at Home and chairman of Warburtons Bakery. 

With a sample submitted by the pet owner, Biome9 analyses a dog’s gut health and produces a “Gut Discovery Report” summarising their core microbiome profile. Although the microbiome can include as many as 1.5k bacterial species, the profile focuses on bacteria known to be involved with important functions like fibre digestion, immune regulation, fatty acid production and skin and coat condition. 

Biome9’s scientists can then offer recommendations based on the findings; like humans, dogs can lack fibre-degrading probiotic bacteria, so complementary probiotics can be added to their diet. These can be natural foods — like feeding the dog a handful of blueberries — or personalised supplement care plans. 

The role of machine learning

Biome9 uses machine learning to model what a healthy dog gut microbiome looks like. To help with this, they use data from partners like the Guide Dogs Association, where dogs are raised in highly controlled environments with carefully selected food and routines and regular vet checks. 

“This gives us a well-defined population of healthy dogs, which we can use as a benchmark,” says Schuitemaker. “Every dog we test contributes to improving the accuracy of our models, and we regularly update our reports based on this growing dataset, so our understanding of what’s considered a healthy microbiome is always evolving.” 

This work is also helping improve our understanding of the health implications of the microbiome. One example is a potential connection between the microbiome and epilepsy: Biome9 has worked with Dogileptic, a canine epilepsy care company, to understand how their supplement plans can help dogs with seizures.

Schuitemaker says that a preventative approach to gut health is crucial. In humans, microbiome diversity tends to increase over lifetime, as our life experiences and new environments expose us to new bacteria; but in dogs, the opposite happens, as older dogs become more sedentary and adopt more fixed routines. Decreased microbiome diversity is linked to health issues in older dogs including reduced mobility, energy levels and joint health. 

“Four in five of our customers report some kind of gut-related symptom in their dogs — that’s not surprising, since most people seek out microbiome testing after they’ve already noticed a problem,” says Schuitemaker. “But we’re encouraging owners to take a more proactive approach.” 

Improving human-pet health links

For companies working on the intersection between human and animal health, the microbiome can be a great starting point. 

“What really struck me when I began working in the microbiome space is that it seemed like the missing link in health,” says Emmanuel Bijaoui, founder and CEO of Singapore-based Treat Therapeutics. “It gave us a way to quantify environmental impact on health through the bacteria in our gut and how they interact with the body.” 

Treat Therapeutics is a decentralised clinical trial platform for pet therapeutics. By sequencing a microbiome profile from his dog Charlie’s faecal sample, for example, Bijaoui was able to implement dietary changes that helped her recover from severe allergies.  

“Pet parents sign up with their dogs or cats, and biotech or pet food companies approach us with research projects — we then partner with those pet parents and their home-based pets to conduct the trials,” says Bijaoui. “We’re not working with kennels or labs, but with real pets, many of whom already have the condition we’re trying to treat.”

Dog and human microbiomes are quite similar, and many gastrointestinal issues, like Crohn’s disease or inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), overlap significantly between the two. There are also similarities in the manifestation of arthritis and skin conditions like atopic dermatitis or eczema. Cancer and dementia are much more complicated areas of research, but Bijaoui sees potential there — particularly in dementia, which has a long disease progression in humans that makes it difficult to study.

“Dogs and cats are incredible models for human health: they get the same chronic diseases we do — dementia, cancer, diabetes, obesity — and they live shorter lives, meaning we can track disease progression and treatment outcomes much faster,” says Bijaoui. “We’re building a way to use pet trials to accelerate human insights. It’s much more logical to solve cancer in dogs first and then translate those findings to humans.” 

Data for the future

Treat Therapeutics began with microbiome testing, but has since expanded to trials addressing a range of medical issues. 

“The challenge, of course, is that running therapeutic trials is typically much more complex,” says Bijaoui. “But that’s also what makes it so exciting, as there’s a huge opportunity for progress there.” 

Veterinary medicine is an ever-evolving field, but research is still lacking on many diseases and some conditions have limited treatment options available. Treat Therapeutics aims to overcome these barriers while working to help pets along the way. 

“It all comes down to data. One of the biggest bottlenecks in veterinary health is the lack of comprehensive, accessible data,” says Bijaoui. “People are still relying on studies from 30 years ago, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to change.” 

I’ve been really fascinated by how engaged pet parents are with our work – they’re actively eager to be involved,” says Bijaoui. “While I can’t promise them a solution, I can promise to get them access to trials and give them the opportunity to try something that could make a difference.”