Cyclosporine (Atopica, Novartis Animal Health): from NC State Trial to Standard of Care for Treatment of Atopic Dermatitis in Dogs

In the mid 1990’s, NC State dermatologists, extrapolating from the apparent efficacy of cyclosporine for treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD) in humans, decided to try this drug on a few dogs with difficult to treat AD. The first dog, Moncie, had been living for many years with this disease, and she was receiving daily prednisone (a steroid) and she had failed allergen-specific immunotherapy injections (desensitization, allergy vaccine). All medications were eventually stopped, and she was given oral cyclosporine.

Skin lesions and itch improved within a month, and she became again a happy dog that no longer needed steroids (see photo). As this beneficial effect was verified on a few other dogs, a blinded steroid-controlled trial was started at NC State. Because of the verified efficacy of this drug to reduce skin lesions and itch in dogs with AD in the NC State study, larger clinical trials were started in the US, Europe and Japan. As a result of these trials, cyclosporine is now licensed, under the brand name Atopica (Novartis Animal Health), for treatment of AD in dogs in the European Union, USA, Canada, Japan and Australia. By now, millions of doses of the drug have been dispensed, and thousands of dogs have benefited from this treatment. Our first treated dog, Moncie, would never have guessed that she would be responsible for making so many dogs live more comfortably with their skin allergies.

Twenty years later, NC State Dermatology is still at the forefront of investigating the future of therapy for canine atopic dermatitis. New clinical trials are designed every year; only the future will tell which of these new drugs will change the standard of care of this common and frustrating allergic skin disease of dogs…