FidoCure® CEO Christina Lopes was recently featured in Forbes, sitting down with Maggie McGrath of ForbesWomen at the Nasdaq studios in New York City. In this exclusive interview, Christina Kelly shared her inspiring journey in building FidoCure®, a company at the forefront of bringing targeted therapies from human oncology to dogs. The interview also highlights FidoCure’s recent patent and its groundbreaking advancements in cancer care, accelerating precision oncology treatments for both canine and human patients. Read the transcipt or watch the video below to discover how FidoCure® is shaping the future of veterinary and human medicine.
Transcript:
Maggie McGrath:
Nearly 6 million dogs are diagnosed with cancer every year according to the NIH. And nearly half of all
dogs over the age of 10 will be diagnosed with cancer according to the same institution. Joining me now
at Nasdaq MarketSite is a founder and CEO who is working to change those numbers. Christina Lopes,
thank you so much for being here.
Christina Lopes:
Maggie, it's my pleasure.
Maggie McGrath:
So you are the CEO and founder of something called FidoCure. Tell me what is FidoCure?
Christina Lopes:
So FidoCure, we birthed FidoCure to really help transform these terrible statistics. Cancer and dogs being
number one killer. And as our dogs become our family members, we can do better. So much progress has
happened on the human side, and guess what, we learned from the dogs, we actually can then help the
human side. So really fighting cancer on both sides of the leash.
Maggie McGrath:
On both sides of the leash.
Christina Lopes:
Yeah, how about that? You like it?
Maggie McGrath:
That's a cute catchphrase. Now I know the last time you spoke with Forbes, it was 2020. You had just
raised your series A, you've had backing from Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz. And at the time, you
had raised 10 million. We're four years later. What's happened in the last four years for you?
Christina Lopes:
Well, first of all, we are now at about 24 million raised, so that's great. We have actually a presence of
FidoCure in 1,350 vet clinics, mostly in the United States, but we get cases from France monthly. We get
cases from South Africa. So this is really a global problem. There are two species on this earth that get a
lot of cancer and that have a caretaker and a payer. Those are dogs and humans. So we've grown 10X.
And importantly, Maggie, for what we do as a data first, AI first company is we've collected now 1.9
billion data points of the canine cancer journey. And so we're able to mine those data in a way that's
completely unprecedented.
It's really hard to do in humans, partially because the human lifespan is very long. Human see different
doctors, humans are very heterogeneous and take lots of medicine. So here we're able to really see in a
very concentrated snapshot the journey of cancer. And what we learned and for the dogs, we translate to
humans. And importantly today is we just got our first patent. So from mining these data with AI, we
were able to discern which drug is working in basically an outsized way to help turn around cancer in
dogs with again, impact for humans. We got the patent, we submitted our AI mine data. So it's also a first
in terms of really thinking cross species, helping our four-legged friends, collecting data using AI, and
then being able to prosecute a patent. Let me stop there.
Maggie McGrath:
Yes, there's a lot of science in what you just said. So let me just zoom out. You get all these genetic data
points from the dogs who have been diagnosed with cancer and then using AI, you can analyze those data
points and figure out which of these cancers and which dogs, which subspecies are best treated by specific
types of medicine.
Christina Lopes:
Yes. So as we enroll pet patients across those thousand plus clinics, with each patient, we learn all their
dog information, phenotypical information, so the breed, the age, male, female. We even know where
they live, the zip code. Then we sequence the tumor. So we get this massive genomic file. Then we enable
the treatment, targeted therapies all from the 21st century, all approved already for humans, but we're
learning more like different use cases. And then we track survival and we do this very copiously.
We layer medical records on top, but we are conscious that medical records often are biased. So again,
I'm in Palo Alto. So I'm in this very deep tech data world. And so by building this dataset, it's really
important, Maggie, because when you think of genAI, if you looking at images of airplanes on the
internet, there's so many of them. Now when you shift your mind to this golden age of bio or tech bio,
you need the data sets. The dataset just don't exist. So a mammalian dataset like what we're building
really tracking cancer longitudinally is really hard to put together for any species. We're doing it for dogs,
again, to help the dogs and the humans.
Maggie McGrath:
So the patent is for the AI analysis or for a drug or for all of the above? Where exactly does it apply?
Christina Lopes:
Yeah, no, no, this is super cool. Great question. So the patent is for a drug, a novel drug for cancer and
dogs that correlates with a biomarker, meaning if you see this cancer in this biomarker like a BRCA, you
hear about in women. So then this drug will have an outsized impact. So transformational, a second
chance at life. But the beauty here is usually, traditional biotechs go to a basement, maybe get the idea
from a university and it's really a Hail Mary, is it going to work or not? Here, we're doing it all very
differently.
We are delivering care, we're collecting the data as we're delivering care. So we're analyzing almost real
time. We're here sitting in NASDAQ, the world of finance does this all the time. Again, in biology, in
medicine, this is really, really hard. The data acquisition is a significant barrier so that we're able to
acquire the data and then really figure out what's really working. Statistically significant. Peer review it.
We were in nature precision oncology. And so from that data package, we were able to prosecute with the
evidence from the dogs, but mine statistically with AI. Does that make sense?
Maggie McGrath:
No, it does make sense. And I'm wondering, across all of this data, have you learned anything about
which specific breeds of dogs are more susceptible to cancer? I mean, I've had a golden retriever in my
life who I loved and he had cancer. My brother and sister-in-Law have three dogs, each a different breed.
So on behalf of dog lovers everywhere, what do we know about the breeds in cancer?
Christina Lopes:
So we breed the dogs for maybe some features we love. I have a standard poodle, I have a Pomeranian,
I've had many dogs, chihuahuas. But here's the thing, just as I mentioned BRCA, that is... It's basically in
many... Let's say Ashkenazi Jewish women have an outsized... Basically a lot of BRCA in that
population. When you think of breeding, what you're doing is you're actually condensing the gene pool
such that sadly in many of these breeds you're not intentionally but you're breeding cancer. So the golden
retrievers, we love them, but they are actually up there. And so larger breeds generally... And this is really
sad. However, actually, because it's so concentrated, Maggie, that's exactly the beauty is we can take that
and know exactly, and then genomically profile the cancer. So we now know, "Okay, is it BRCA that's
driving in that population? Oh, if so then guess what? There's a drug that targets BRCA." So we can
actually get very specific and realize the promise of precision medicine, a holy grail of medicine.
Maggie McGrath:
It's so interesting to hear about precision medicine in dogs because we talk about it all the time with
humans. But my question is, as much as I've loved these dogs that have been in my life, I love my brother
and sister-in-law's dogs, they have human-like qualities, but ultimately dogs are not humans. So how is it
that you're able to draw conclusions about human health from the data you are collecting on these
thousands of doggy patients?
Christina Lopes:
I love how you said that. So humans and dogs co-evolved and I believe in one of our nature papers we
actually discuss genetically the homology, how similar dogs and humans are generally, at the DNA level
and then at the cancer level, because cancer has its own genomic profile. Its own dynamic. Multifactorial,
sure. But again, at the genomic level. We published a few papers actually that show molecularly the
similarities between canine cancer and human cancer genetically and also the journey, meaning when we
see that biomarker that, we talked about BRCA, in the dog, does it mean the same as it does in the human
and in what context, in what tumor type?
So we're able to go in that specifically and say, "Hey, we're seeing this in dogs and it behaves this way.
And guess what? In humans, it's the same." So we become a predictive model, and this is really powerful
because the amount of cancer in dogs is so prolific. You have pet parents really wanting better care like
they get for their two legged family members. And now we're able to map with a lot of detail in a way
that for humans it's very hard, HIPAA and all of that. And so we are validating the homology, the
crossover is incredibly high, and so that opens the door. That's the entire platform. My platform is based
on can we bring the cutting edge from humans to dogs, learn, and then actually bring it back to humans.
Maggie McGrath:
There have been a number of dog longevity startups that have entered the market in recent years that are
attracting tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. What do you see as the
dollar opportunity, the revenue opportunity for your company in this space?
Christina Lopes:
So few people know this actually, but the first billion dollar drugs already exist for dogs. So that, I'm not
creating. It's actually one of the drugs called Apoquel and Zoetis is the owner. And essentially, it's a JAK
inhibitor. It's a similar drug to the kind of drugs I work with. And they thought that TAM was going to be
70 million. The TAM, the total addressable market is $1 billion. Similar with osteoarthritis. So derm,
osteoarthritis, cancer is next. And so that's where we're coming in. So we see this as a multibillion dollar
opportunity easily. And when you think globally and the fervor we see of pet parents, they will put their
own selves aside to take care of their dog, especially with something so urgent like cancer.
Maggie McGrath:
I'm glad you mentioned the global opportunity. Because you are from Brazil originally and you've done a
lot of work internationally. Can you talk to me about how this background and how your journey to this
point informs the way you look at this market?
Christina Lopes:
I definitely am a global citizen, so it's interesting because I met actually some of your Forbes colleagues
at a Forbes reception at Davos. That's actually how I met them. I think one of the Forbes family members
and your editor Rhondo Lane. So that gives you definitely a global perspective, from let's say Davos the
top, but I also came to America as a poor immigrant. So I have both sides and I like both. And I like to be
working on both... Not just both sides of the leash, but end of the spectrum and thinking globally. This
transformation of the dog as this humanization of pets, as really the best friend, actually family member is
not just in the United States. You see it in Europe, you see it in Asia in certain countries where actually
the dog was part of the nutritional values and it's like a complete turnaround.
So I think as populations are aging, mental health has become much more... A big issue. The dog is
frankly one of the... I don't want to say saviors, but they really are best friends and guess what, might in
cancer also. What we learn. And so we're seeing GDP, when you think of the spend on dogs in initially
developed countries... But I'm from Brazil, middle income country, which is I believe the third-largest pet
market in the world. I think it just got beat by China, which is now second. So I think it's US, China,
Brazil and UK or some order or such. So this is absolutely global and we see it daily in the company.
When we get calls in from Turkey, who knew? Cases every month from the UK. Dogs are beloved and
that crosses nationalities, borders, genders, ages, everything.
Maggie McGrath:
I always say they're the best among us truly.
Christina Lopes:
They are.
Maggie McGrath:
Now talking about your background, you have not always been in life science. You started your career in
finance.
Christina Lopes:
I did.
Maggie McGrath:
And in a pretty big financial firm. You had $50 billion in asset under management where you worked.
How did you go from that to FidoCure?
Christina Lopes:
So I've always been a mission driven person like day one in my career. So first being from Brazil, I grew
up in a military dictatorship. I saw the first election, the President just died the next day. I saw real
financial crisis after crisis. I was in hyperinflation. Brazil couldn't borrow a dollar to buy oil in the
international market. So there was a period where there was no transport. So I've seen what that
intersection of innovation, money, finance actually and everyday needs of people, that have actually
nothing... We're sitting here in Times Square, nothing to do with New York and Wall Street. So I've taken
it... Because I've had the privilege of seeing from so many angles, I've always said I want to be the one
that intersects the capital technology and people for those that are marginalized and voiceless. Now I used
to say this more thinking actually of women. I didn't mean dogs, but watch what you say because it can be
a prophecy.
So I did a lot of work in Climate 1.0, water, nutrition, food, massive agricultural projects, infrastructure
projects. So that's always been what I've been funding. I never really did frankly... Nothing against, but I
never did consumer, for example. And moving into health, global health first, I served on the board of
Planned Parenthood for the Western hemisphere. And so I started to see, "Wow, there's so many unmet
needs." That last mile of care is everything, and how do we get the really amazing innovation happening
in Silicon Valley, in Boston, how do we get that to that last mile of care? And so I'm working actually on
the canine portion of it as an unmet need, again with hopefully an evidence generating engine that can
help accelerate the human care cures also.
Maggie McGrath:
Your company sits at the intersection of so many different sectors. You have medicine, you have AI, you
have a marketing function to find your customers. How do you, A, identify the people that you need for
your team? And then B, how do you decide how to allocate your time as CEO?
Christina Lopes:
So that's fabulous and it touches on coming from Brazil and now being in Silicon Valley. Having that
multidisciplinary worldview has been very helpful here. Because we see founders in Silicon Valley often
are very technical and they know one lane and that's all they know. So being able to do something truly
transformative in this age of today where you have all these tools accelerating, genAI, you really need
vision and you need to be able to integrate different stakeholders. The magic comes from these different
stakeholders coming together and they need a lingua franca. You need to have a common narrative. I
anchor it on the mission. Everyone says it's like crushing cancer on both sides of the leash. That's it. So
there's always the mission. It's very patient centric and science first. The business follows. So these are
kind of... Everybody that comes in is enamored, frankly I would say even in love with this mission.
And you kind of need that for startup world. You got to have the love. And then I've been lucky to have
folks from the human side that have done this and have done this in the intersection of precision medicine
and data that are the leaders in the world. So specifically Amy Abernathy, she was really one of the
drivers behind Flat Iron Health that got sold to Roche for almost 3 billion. She was deputy commissioner
of FDA under Scott Gottlieb and she has been a very early day mentor to me, friend, and really part of our
journey in a really incredible way because she's so excited about what we can learn in the doggy space,
doggy cancer, there's no doggy HIPAA. For her, it's incredible. So she brings that she's human oncologist,
patient first centric, that she's been the driver of real world evidence. So this whole ability to pull data
from everyday clinical care, not just in research, not just a clinical trial.
So we basically adapted her framework to our product to FidoCure at the vet, and that's how we're able to
acquire data so well that then we use AI to mine, but without having... So she did this already at Flatiron,
let's say. She had been in academia also, so she was really important at helping me framework. I also have
a friend and portfolio sister, Daphne Koller who leads Insitro and she talks a lot about this really diverse
background because that's where the magic really is. There's a golden age of biology upon us. Sequencing
costs are way down. AI, right? What I'm able to do to mine, 1.9 billion data points, I would've needed a
massive team and massive resources. I'm able to just go so fast and with such accuracy. So we need our
AI folks to talk to our vet folks to talk to some of our human folks, to then our comms gets involved and
the common core is the mission. No doubt.
Maggie McGrath:
Now you mentioned patient-centric, science first, and the business follows. So just to be clear, what is the
business model and how do you make your money?
Christina Lopes:
So right now we're moving into the more drug side, which is essentially think a massive market. You get
IP and then you get exclusivity also through the FDA. So you are basically able to market a drug for that
population where there's potentially no other option. So right there you have a way to essentially generate
revenue. We pick the class of drugs that are small molecules, targeted therapy. So again, thinking of that
last mile of care, thinking to stay democratic, but of course it has to be a very healthy business. I think
sustainability and I think the longterm. So that is one whole type of business model, very well understood
in drug development. Then we have our basically delivery of care, which is also how we get data and we
generate revenue there. I will tell you, we optimize for the data above perhaps the revenue just because
the data now we unlock, with drugs, with different assets. So I hope that makes sense. It's a way to
generate revenue, but acquire data and then unleash the assets, which are drugs.
Maggie McGrath:
And with this new patent, you're basically stepping into that new phase that will help generate that
revenue.
Christina Lopes:
Yeah, that's a big milestone, Maggie. Since I spoke to Forbes last, that's probably one of the biggest, and
to do it so fast and actually very economically like capital efficiency is big on my list. Being from Brazil,
seeing financial crises, I never was that Silicon Valley CEO that's just throwing money. I'm actually very
cautious and I think that's paid off well.
Maggie McGrath:
If we were to speak one year from today, what do you want to be able to say that FidoCure has
accomplished?
Christina Lopes:
So close another round of funding, that we have signed certain partnerships to increase our FidoCure
footprint, if we're in a thousand something clinics to 10,000. So getting inked, those partnerships, and
then the drugs. That's really important. And it's really important to get that through the FDA and start that
process. So from patent world into what's called exclusivity. And I'm putting together a dream team to do
that and feel really honored. The team is amazing.
Maggie McGrath:
Well, Christina Lopes, thank you so much for joining us at NASDAQ MarketSite to tell us all about your
work. We really appreciate it.
Christina Lopes:
Maggie, thank you
