The ‘blood’s’ actually tapped sap from rainforest trees.

No, it’s not blood, or — duh — from dragons. But a new prescription drug carrying the nickname “dragon’s blood” is being developed for animal as well as human treatment. Tapped from a substance in rainforest tree, the latest drug of its type under development is, SP-303, an isolated and purified form of the medicinal rainforest plant Croton lechleri, seeks to treat chemotherapy-induced diarrhea (CID) in dogs. Drugs for human use have already been approved.

A variant native Latin American plant’s red resin — source of the nickname among indigenous populations — gained US approval for the treatment of HIV-associated diarrhea in humans in December 2012.

The company, Jaguar Animal Health, a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Napo Pharmaceuticals, received an investigational new animal drug application (INADA) number SP-303, and seeks to file an application for this indication later in the year. Jaguar and parent Napo are exclusively focused on marketing rainforest plant-derived drugs, nutraceuticals, and food supplements.

Read more in my full story, “‘Dragon’s blood’ used to treat chemo-induced diarrhea is slotted for dogs undergoing cancer treatment,” online at Pharmaceutical Commerce.