Mars Launches Mars Petcare BIOBANK

At Mars, we know pets make our lives better. This is why we are committed to helping them stay healthy for longer.

As a purpose-driven company deeply rooted in science, we know that, like in human medicine, “one-size-fits-all” healthcare solutions don’t always work for every pet.

This is why we’ve launched a unique study(Opens a new window) aiming to help scientists better understand how diseases develop and build new ways to prevent, diagnose or treat conditions affecting cats and dogs.

Prevention is key to improving the wellbeing and quality of life of humans and animals alike. But pets can’t always tell us when they feel ill – which is why scientists seek to discover early signs of illness, to understand how pets of all ages can stay healthy for as long as possible.

The MARS PETCARE BIOBANK^TM(Opens a new window) initiative aims to be the largest, most comprehensive real-world study of its kind. Scientists will aim to understand the differences between pets that age healthily and those that develop diseases, so they can find new ways to detect potential health issues before they happen – and ultimately improve individualized care based on a pet’s risk of suffering from certain diseases in the future.

At Mars, we have a responsibility to leverage our reach and the passion and energy of our Associates to make a meaningful difference. We’re aiming to recruit 20,000 healthy pets(Opens a new window) (10,000 dogs and 10,000 cats of all breed makeups) across the United States over the next 10 years. Following such a large number of pets throughout their lives can give us the insights we need to better understand – and prevent – a wider range of illnesses. This is why this study can help improve pet health care for future generations of cats and dogs.

What is a biobank?

A biobank is a repository for biological samples, images, and other data. The amount of information gathered in these repositories makes scientific investigations possible on a much larger scale than ever before. This data can help scientists uncover patterns or links between early changes in a pet’s health and later on when pets start showing symptoms.

Who can participate

The MARS PETCARE BIOBANK is now recruiting healthy dogs already visiting some of our U.S.-based VCA™ Animal Hospital and BANFIELD™ Pet Hospital locations, as well as current blood donor clients of BLUEPEARL™ Specialty + Emergency Pet Hospital.

A veterinary professional at a designated pet hospital will collect the blood and cheek swab samples during a pet’s annual routine health checks. Once collected, samples will be stored and analyzed by technicians at Antech Diagnostics(Opens a new window), as well as scientists at the Waltham Petcare Science Institute(Opens a new window).

Find out(Opens a new window) if you and your cat or dog can join this community today, and visit marspetcarebiobank.com(Opens a new window) to learn more about how this study can help us innovate individualized care for pets.