Building Confidence in Decision Making

At Transpharmation, we’re focused on generating the data our clients need to make smarter, more confident development decisions. This month, we’re highlighting new insights and capabilities across:

• Canine Anxiety Research
• Metabolic Health & Noninvasive Body Composition Analysis
• Epilepsy Screening & Seizure Profiling

Whether you’re advancing a veterinary or human health program, these examples demonstrate how translational models and objective endpoints can help de-risk critical R&D decisions.

Can a single dose of trazodone help reduce travel-related stress in dogs?

We’re pleased to share the publication of a new study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science demonstrating that acute trazodone administration significantly reduced multiple behavioural and physiological indicators of travel-induced anxiety in dogs, including cortisol levels, lip licking, restlessness, yawning, and global anxiety scores.

This work, titled “Acute trazodone administration reduces behavioral and physiological indicators of travel-induced anxiety in dogs in a road travel model”, highlights the value of robust translational animal behaviour models in evaluating interventions designed to improve companion animal welfare and quality of life. At Transpharmation, we’re proud to support studies that combine objective biomarkers with behavioural endpoints to generate meaningful, decision-enabling data for veterinary therapeutics.

📖 View the article in Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Non-Invasive Measurements of Obesity and Metabolic Health

At Transpharmation, we advance rodent and companion-animal models for obesity and metabolic drug discovery across human and animal health. As the field moves beyond body weight alone, tools are needed to distinguish fat loss, lean-mass preservation, hydration changes, and related treatment effects. Quantitative Magnetic Resonance (QMR) provides this added resolution.

Using QMR, we can non-invasively measure fat mass, lean mass, and total body water with a rapid scan that supports repeated assessment over time. Because animals can be scanned awake, without anesthesia or sedation, QMR minimizes procedure-related stress and avoids the acute effects that sedation can have on food intake, water consumption, and metabolic readouts. For metabolic studies, this is a major advantage: it allows investigators to generate high-resolution longitudinal data while reducing confounding variables that can obscure true drug effects.

Their natural adiposity and shared features of human metabolic disease make dogs and cats valuable translational higher-animal models for obesity, metabolic adaptation, and therapeutic response. QMR determines true fat loss from total weight change, confirming whether therapies reduce adiposity while preserving lean mass; an important measure for incretins, appetite modulators, combination therapies, and other next-generation metabolic assets. QMR helps to contextualize related metabolic endpoints such as body condition score, glucose handling, energy balance, and circulating biomarkers.

The example below demonstrates the strength of this approach:

• In a 2-month canine study, dogs were assigned to one of two obesogenic diets: half receiving a high-carbohydrate diet, half receiving a high trans fat diet
• Longitudinal assessment demonstrated measurable changes in body composition, indicating that macronutrient profile influenced metabolic phenotype beyond changes in total body weight alone.
  • QMR provided enhanced analytical sensitivity for detection of changes in fat mass and lean mass, enabling more refined characterization of tissue-specific responses than could be achieved using BW as a standalone endpoint.
  • QMR-detectable alterations in body composition were observed despite relatively modest changes in BW, supporting the utility of body-composition profiling for early identification of diet-induced metabolic effects.
• These findings reinforce the value of QMR in canine obesity research by improving interpretation of adiposity-related outcomes, differentiating the quality of weight change, and strengthening translational assessment of metabolic interventions.

Key findings in Figure 1:

✔ Analysis of body weight with High Carb vs High Trans Fat as the between subject measure and study phase as the within subject measure indicated a clear effect in the High Carb group for increased weight at both the mid point and end of study compared to baseline (p<0.05). There were no significant changes in bodyweight over the study period for the High Trans Fat group.

Key findings in Figure 2 and 3:

✔ QMR fat and lean mass analysis indicated a significant increase (p<0.05) in fat content at both the mid and end of study for both groups, with no group differences detected at each timepoint. Lean mass analysis revealed an interaction between group and phase, which reflected a significant increase (p<0.05) in lean mass in the High Carb group when compared to baseline. In the High Trans Fat group, a significant reduction (p<0.05) in lean mass was detected at both the mid and end of study when compared to baseline.

At Transpharmation, we combine advanced measurement tools with animal welfare and scientific rigor. Our canine and feline models reflect key features of companion-animal obesity while supporting translational insight relevant to human metabolic disease. Paired with QMR, these models help sponsors generate richer longitudinal datasets and make clearer decisions about compound progression.

We have an open study slot for obesity and metabolic studies available to start immediately. Reply to this email to speak with a researcher.

Explore Metabolic Disorders and Obesity

The Power of Acute Seizure Screening Tools

Epilepsy is heterogeneous, so a single assay can miss important efficacy signals and have differential sensitivity to known anti-seizure medications.

If you’re unsure what seizure type your NCE may best impact, profiling across MES, s.c. PTZ and 6 Hz helps indicate which seizure phenotype may be treatable.

If you need more confidence early, these three acute tests together identify known anti-seizure medications, with MES + PTZ recognised as gold‑standard early‑phase screening assays. We are leaning on 30+ years of drug discovery experience, with our assays being utilized nonstop year-to-year.

So, if your team needs data to drive decision making, we can benchmark against a battery of clinically used anti-seizure medications and compare efficacy with tolerability readouts (e.g., rotarod/automated platforms).

Learn more: Acute Seizure Screening (MES, PTZ and 6 Hz)