Zoetis (NYSE:ZTS) stock dropped more than 7% Friday after a report from The Wall Street Journal said there were various adverse events linked to the pet health company’s osteoarthritis pain drugs Librela and Solensia.
The publication stated that the FDA received over 3,800 reports of side effects concerning the drugs through the end of last year. Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency has received over 12,300 reports of side effects involving Librela and more than 7,700 for Solensia since 2021.
In December 2021 and May 2023, Solensia and Librela were approved to control pain in cats and dogs with osteoarthritis. The FDA approved Librela and another cat treatment as the first antibody drugs for pets.
Librela went on sale in the U.S. in 2023, while Solensia went on sale in 2022, with Zoetis aiming for a slice of the over $45 billion animal-health market.
Rob Polzer, Zoetis’s research-and-development chief, told the WSJ that “in both human health, animal health, there’s no drug that’s risk-free."
"When those reports come in, of course, we take them very seriously,” he added.