All-Inclusive Pet Hotel, Vet Practice ExpandsDecember 19, 2014Southern California veterinarian John Boyd, DVM, has opened his second all-in-one pet resort, offering boarding, day care, dog training and grooming services in addition to veterinary care. The first Dr. Boyd’s Pet Resort & Veterinary Center launched in 2011 a mile away from the San Diego airport, a convenient location for pet owners to drop off their cat or dog before they flew out on vacation or business. The second location opened Monday in Irvine, Calif., just eight miles from the Orange County airport. The new facility is twice the size of the original—25,000 square feet versus 12,000. The Irvine business brings “our first-of-its-kind concept to a community that loves pets,” Dr. Boyd said. The website WalletHub.com ranks Irvine as the fourth-best city in the United States for pet lovers. Heading up the operation as CEO is Boyd, a 1986 graduate of the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine. Assisting him in Irvine are chief medical officer Christina Branshaw, DVM, and veterinarians Amy Krier, DVM, and Mike Mansfield, DVM. Staffed 24 hours a day, both locations charge daily boarding fees of $49 for dogs and $29 for cats. Day care is $29 and $20, respectively. …
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Aratana Moves Ahead on 2 Canine DrugsDecember 19, 2014A drug being studied for the treatment of osteoarthritis pain in dogs showed positive results in a pivotal field study, according to the developer, Aratana Therapeutics Inc. The Kansas City, Kan., veterinary drug maker also announced the launch of a pivotal field effectiveness study for a drug formulated to treat post-surgical pain in dogs. The osteoarthritis drug, code-named AT-001, was used in a blinded, placebo-controlled, multicenter dose-ranging study involving 280 client-owned dogs. The dogs, all of whom had osteoarthritis, were split into AT-001 and placebo groups and received daily oral doses for 28 days, Aratana reported Thursday. Validated owner-assessed pain scores showed that AT-001, which uses the compound grapiprant to target the EP4 receptor, demonstrated statistically significant improvements compared with the placebo, Aratana noted. The company expects to win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of AT-001 in 2016. “We believe AT-001 has the potential to be an important product in the well-established pain market,” said President and CEO Steven St. Peter, MD. Aratana also reported the initiation of a pivotal field effectiveness study of a drug licensed from Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Parsippany, N.J. AT-003 is an injectable, extended-release bupivacaine formulated for post-operative pain in dogs. A …
Zoetis Unveils FeLV, FIV Combo TestDecember 18, 2014Veterinary drug maker Zoetis Inc. this week began taking orders for a new test designed to diagnose both feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV). Shipments are scheduled to begin Jan. 5. The Witness test kit uses Rapid Immuno Migration (RIM) technology to detect the presence of FeLV antigen and FIV antibodies within 10 minutes, according to the Florham, Park, N.J., company. No refrigeration or snapping—a common physical step in point-of-care diagnostic tests—is necessary. “Since the Witness FeLV-FIV test kit does not require refrigeration, it is easy to store, does not take up refrigerator space, and veterinarians don’t need to wait for it to come to room temperature to use,” said J. Michael McFarland, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, the group director of Companion Animal Veterinary Operations for Zoetis. The combination test rates at 92.9 percent sensitivity and 96.5 percent specificity for FeLV and 93.8 percent sensitivity and 93.4 percent specificity for FIV, the company added. Feline leukemia virus and feline immunodeficiency virus are potentially fatal. FeLV rates in the United States range from 2 to 4 percent of all cats and up to 13 percent or more of cats that are ill, very young or at high risk …
Zebu’s Illness Was Tough Nut to CrackDecember 18, 2014Sluggishness, inappetence and constipation were the clinical signs. Acorns were the cause. A miniature zebu, the world’s smallest cattle breed, is recovering at home after University of Florida veterinarians treated the animal for kidney failure, which they believe was brought on by his taste for acorns. The zebu, named Brutus, underwent hemodialysis in what the university stated may have been the first time for a bovine patient with acute disease. The life-threatening episode began Nov. 18, when 1-year-old Brutus was brought to the Gainesville, Fla., hospital. “He’d had a two-day history of lethargy, not eating and constipation,” said Rob MacKay, BVSc, Ph.D., Dipl. ACVIM, a professor of large animal medicine. “When he arrived at UF, his vital signs were stable, but he was not having the stomach contractions that move food from the stomach into the intestines, and he wasn’t producing urine. He also was lethargic and trembling.” Blood work and ultrasound revealed acute kidney injury, Dr. MacKay said. The “aha!” moment came during a discussion with owners Mark and Rachel Duncan of Ocoee, Fla. “It was revealed that there were oak trees in Brutus’ pasture and that they had seen him eating acorns,” MacKay said. “Unfortunately, unbeknownst to his …
Midwestern Teaching Hospital Off to Early StartDecember 18, 2014Midwestern University’s inaugural class of veterinary students won’t start their training rotations for two years, but the on-campus Companion Animal Clinic is open for business. The 111,800-square-foot teaching hospital, one of the largest in the United States, began scheduling appointments Dec. 1 and opened its doors Tuesday. The clinic, now staffed by faculty members, offers primary and specialty care for small animals, including services in internal medicine, dentistry, surgery and diagnostic imaging. Available to patients are 14 examination rooms, four surgical suites, two specialty suites and a physical rehabilitation area with an underwater treadmill. The initial 102 students who enrolled in the College of Veterinary Medicine will begin supervised rotations at the clinic in the spring of 2017. Still to come on the Glendale, Ariz., campus are a 70,000-square-foot large animal hospital, called the Bovine and Equine Center, and a necropsy and pathology center. The small animal hospital “will offer the highest-quality veterinary care provided by our academic faculty veterinarians,” said Kathleen H. Goeppinger, Ph.D., Midwestern’s president and CEO. “We have worked hard to build state-of-the-art technology in all areas of the facility to educate our students to become highly skilled and compassionate veterinarians in the future,” Goeppinger …
Lincoln Memorial’s New Center Focuses on Animal Health in Appalachian RegionDecember 18, 2014Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine (LMU-CVM) has formed an animal health center in the Appalachian region. The Center for Animal Health in Appalachia, located at the DeBusk Veterinary Teaching Center in Harrogate, Tenn., and Lee County, Va., will host an annual conference on animal and public health issues in Appalachia each October starting in 2015. “Our veterinary school is devoted to the mission of improving animal and human healthcare in the Appalachian region,” said Glen Hoffsis, DVM, dean and vice president of Lincoln Memorial University College of Veterinary Medicine. “The team we’ve assembled for [the center] will be instrumental in achieving this vital public mission.” The center plans to fulfill its mission through the following initiatives: Host conferences, workshops and training programs. Provide veterinary students with the opportunity to earn a Rural Animal Practice Certificate, combining: a. in-house and hands-on training in mixed animal medicine, surgery, veterinary business practices and communications, b. public health training in one health, drawing in part on Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia resources including diagnostic laboratories and LMU-CVM facilities, c. clinical placements in private and public practices in Appalachia and d. focused training in mixed animal veterinary business practices. Hold community educational programs for …
20-Year-Old LifeLearn Unveils New IdentityDecember 17, 2014LifeLearn Inc., which provides educational and marketing resources for the veterinary industry, has gotten a makeover with a new logo and website and the tagline “Knowledge unbound.” The logo’s colors—blue, green and orange—weren’t random choices. Rather, blue was selected to show “confidence, intelligence and trust,” orange to represent action and green as a symbol of the Canadian company’s “roots and continued growth,” LifeLearn reported Dec. 12. “The three-tiered ‘E’ not only incorporates LifeLearn’s core pillars of business, but it also visually represents how LifeLearn serves as a catalyst to elevate the animal health industry with actionable knowledge—to move forward, upward and through to deep understanding in action,” according to the company. The rebranding is the latest development from a company that for 20 years “has been committed to enhancing the veterinary community with educational and communication tools,” said James Carroll, the president and CEO. “This rebrand more accurately reflects our evolution and unifies our value proposition across the wide spectrum of clients we serve, ranging from single-doctor veterinary practices to large animal health corporations,” Carroll said. In other news, a new language-recognition computer program called LifeLearn Sofie allows veterinarians to type in a question and receive “relevant, objective and …
4 Vet School Faculty Joining National Academy of InventorsDecember 17, 2014Four veterinary school professors on Tuesday were named fellows in the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), a status awarded to academic researchers who, according to the organization, “have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.” Some 414 professionals representing research universities, government agencies and nonprofit institutions and working in fields as diverse as computer engineering and transplantation science are fellows of the Tampa, Fla.-based NAI. The newly chosen veterinary members are: X.J. Meng, MS, Ph.D., MD, a university distinguished professor of molecular virology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Yasuko Rikihisa, MS, Ph.D., a university distinguished professor of veterinary biosciences in Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. George E. Seidel Jr., MS, Ph.D., a university distinguished professor in the Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology Laboratory at Colorado State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Janet K. Yamamoto, Ph.D., an immunology professor in the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine. The new class of 170 fellows will be inducted March 20, 2015, during a ceremony at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. Dr. Meng studies emerging and re-emerging viral diseases that impact veterinary and …
Major Expansion Underway at D.C. HospitalDecember 17, 2014A Washington, D.C., veterinary hospital that employs 43 doctors will more than double in size when an 8,000-square-foot addition opens in 2015. Friendship Hospital for Animals, accredited by the American Animal Hospital Association, is adding a second floor and enlarging its 6,000-square-foot first floor. Seven exam rooms and three surgical suites are being constructed to help with a caseload of more than 60,000 patient visits a year. The first phase is scheduled for completion in late winter and the final piece by springtime. Friendship, which opened in 1936 and occupied its current building in 1960, offers primary care, specialty services and around-the-clock emergency medicine. The hospital bills itself as the only veterinary facility in Washington to employ full-time, board-certified specialists in surgery, critical care, internal medicine, radiology, oncology, neurology and clinical pathology. The hospital director, Peter S. Glassman, DVM, who launched the practice management system VetInsite in 2000, said the time was right for an expansion. “With 43 veterinarians and a total team of 176 operating under such physical constraints, Friendship was simply running out of the ability to provide the quality of care which our clients demanded,” Dr. Glassman said. “Doubling the size of our facility permits …
University of Glasgow Adds Penn State to Joint Vet School ProgramDecember 16, 2014Students in the Department of Animal Science at Penn State will soon have the opportunity to enroll in the University of Glasgow School of Veterinary Medicine’s FEEPASS program. FEEPASS stands for Facilitated Early Entry Program for Animal Science Students. Under the program, students will complete the first three years of their undergraduate degree at Penn State. Their senior year will then be completed at the University of Glasgow, which equates to their first year of veterinary school. After successfully completing their senior year, they will receive a B.S. degree from Penn State while continuing to pursue their veterinary degree at the University of Glasgow. The program, known at the 3+1+4 system, was offered for the first time to universities in the United States in 2014. While the total time spent in school is the same as the traditional vet school route, eight years, there is a distinct advantage in having a guaranteed entry into vet school, according to Penn State. “We are thrilled to offer our students this innovative opportunity to study veterinary science with Glasgow’s internationally renowned program,” said Tracy Hoover Ph.D., associate dean for Undergraduate Education, who helped work out the details of the articulation agreement. “We are …
