AI adoption in veterinary clinics rose from 39 percent to 84 percent in two yearsResting cortisol tracked APPLE scores but not mortality in 30 SIRS dogsFetch Pet Insurance bundles four annual telehealth visits into every policy at no added premiumPregabalin before spay raised sedation scores 2.46 points in 54 catsParasight System wins preferred-provider deal with 850-hospital independent practice networkVeterinary economist Matt Salois says practices cannot rely on pricing growth into 2027WSAVA publishes updated dental guidelines with trauma and radiographic sectionsDechra launches Laverdia, the first FDA-approved oral treatment for canine lymphomaAI adoption in veterinary clinics rose from 39 percent to 84 percent in two yearsResting cortisol tracked APPLE scores but not mortality in 30 SIRS dogsFetch Pet Insurance bundles four annual telehealth visits into every policy at no added premiumPregabalin before spay raised sedation scores 2.46 points in 54 catsParasight System wins preferred-provider deal with 850-hospital independent practice networkVeterinary economist Matt Salois says practices cannot rely on pricing growth into 2027WSAVA publishes updated dental guidelines with trauma and radiographic sectionsDechra launches Laverdia, the first FDA-approved oral treatment for canine lymphoma
The WireBy The VeterinaryPracticeNow Desk3 min readSeptember 4, 2026
6.6 million horses, 2 million households, and the R&D math that never closed, until now
BI's GB approval and a peer-reviewed regenerative trial, in a category the industry has treated as economically unjustifiable.
6.6 million horses in the U.S. according to the American Horse Council's 2023 Economic Impact study, spread across 2 million households per the American Pet Products Association's 2025 survey. The source reports the approval of "a therapy for the treatment of insulin dysregulation in horses and ponies in Great Britain." A few weeks earlier, the source reported "the publication of a peer-reviewed controlled trial in equine regenerative medicine for an allogenic equine umbilical cord connective tissue matrix."
The margin problem those numbers create
Equine has long struggled to find a business-unit home inside animal-health companies, too specialized for companion-animal divisions, too niche for livestock, too small to justify a dedicated team. The source notes that "from an R&D perspective, the relatively low number of horse-owning households" and the lack of recent, reliable horse-population data "make it extremely difficult to create financially justifiable market potential assumptions." The result: equine has been treated as what the source calls "the wild west, with little need for traditional FDA product approvals" or sustained investment.
The American Horse Council's 2023 study segmented the 6.6 million horses into sectors including racing, recreation, and competition. The source points to "the legitimizing of the regenerative medicine (PRP) and pain management modalities (laser, chiropractic, massage) for humans" as a shift in the frame. While the equine market will always be dwarfed by cats, dogs, and livestock, we're reading recent product activity as a signal the floor on what counts as a viable equine product may have moved.
What the approvals actually mean
A GB approval for insulin dysregulation and a peer-reviewed regenerative-medicine trial both represent investment in controlled studies and regulatory work, costs the industry has historically been reluctant to carry for this segment. That's new. The misread: treating this as proof that equine is now a growth category for pharma. Our read: companies are running the unit economics on equine products and some are deciding the return justifies the regulatory path, and if that's true, the mixed-animal practices that still see horses can stop treating equine as a loss leader and start treating it as a service line that can carry margin.
What this means for the practice that still does equine
If you're a mixed-animal DVM and equine is currently the thing you do because your clients ask and you can't say no, recent product activity changes the calculation. Investment in new tools means higher-value case mix, which means equine time blocks start justifying themselves against small-animal appointment volume.
For the rural practice owner, equine capability has been a defensive asset: it keeps clients from driving 90 minutes to a specialist. If margin improves, it becomes an offensive growth lever. For the equine specialist, approved products mean better ability to compete with university hospitals on outcomes, not just on convenience or cost. The tools matter. If the tools improve, case complexity you can handle in private practice expands, and referral capture improves.
Whether additional approvals follow. The American Horse Council's segmentation work and the legitimizing of regenerative modalities in human medicine both create tailwinds, but tailwinds don't fund clinical trials. Someone has to decide the 6.6 million horses and 2 million households justify the cost. If they do, equine stops being the orphan category and starts being a margin opportunity for practices that can deliver it. If they don't, recent approvals were outliers, and the unit economics stay broken.
The number to watch: not total horse population, but the subset willing to pay for advanced therapeutics. That's the addressable market pharma actually underwrites, and no one has published it.
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