Daewoong Pet has launched "UDCA Tablet 50mg," a new low-dose animal medicine containing ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), the company said Wednesday. UDCA is the main ingredient in Ursa, a medicine for human use.
This is the first time a 50mg UDCA tablet has received approval and been launched among animal medicines in Korea. The ultra-small low-dose tablet, at one-quarter the level of the existing 200mg product, was developed to enable precise prescriptions tailored to the body weight of small dogs and cats and to improve administration convenience.
Animal UDCA is administered orally at 10 to 15mg per kilogram of body weight, once or twice daily. Until now, small dogs and cats weighing 2 to 5kg often required high-dose tablets to be split or crushed for use. This process has been cited as a burden in clinical settings, as accurate dosage adjustment is difficult and the preparation process is cumbersome.
Daewoong Pet expects the new product to improve prescription convenience, as dosage can be adjusted by body weight without splitting or crushing the tablets. The company also believes it can reduce the burden on veterinarians and pet owners by expanding tablet-level prescription options.
As pets have aged in recent years, interest in managing chronic liver disease and bile acid metabolism has also grown. According to a study published in the international journal Frontiers in Microbiology, UDCA concentrations in the feces of cats with chronic kidney disease (CKD) were lower than in healthy cats. The researchers suggested that changes in specific gut microbiome composition may be associated with this phenomenon, explaining that further research is needed on bile acid metabolism and the role of UDCA from a gut-kidney axis perspective.
UDCA Tablet 50mg can be used for dogs and cats of various body weights, in line with the approved standard of administering 10 to 15mg of UDCA per kilogram of body weight orally, once or twice daily. The product uses high-purity UDCA from Daewoong Bio as its raw material.
"UDCA Tablet 50mg is a product designed to improve the prescription and administration inconveniences continuously raised in actual clinical settings," said Kim Na-yeon, a marketing manager at Daewoong Pet. "We will strengthen veterinary hospital-focused product supply and information provision so that we can offer a more convenient and stable UDCA administration environment for pets."
