Lotilaner, moxidectin, praziquantel, and pyrantel chewable tablets (Credelio Quattro; Elanco Animal Health) have officially been launched and are now available to order, according to a recent announcement by Elanco Animal Health (Elanco).

 The product, which provides canine protection against 6 parasites, made its debut at the 

The drug, which received FDA approval in October 2024, is the only monthly chewable tablet that offers protection against 6 different parasites, including 3 intestinal worms that can be transmitted to humans.

The combination chewable tablet is indicated for monthly administration and is suitable for dogs aged 8 weeks or older weighing 3.3 lb or more. It is also designed to offer prevention of heartworm disease.

“Today is a historic day as we bring veterinarians and pet owners peace of mind with the broadest parasite protection of its kind for dogs," Bobby Modi, executive vice president, US Pet Health and Global Digital Transformation, said in a company release.

 “By providing the broadest range of parasite protection of its kind, covering 6 parasites in a single, chewable, Credelio Quattro delivers on pet owner expectations, while strengthening Elanco's market presence and positioning us for continued growth in the parasiticide segment,” he continued. 

According to a survey by Elanco, 94% of dog owners consider proactive treatment for intestinal worms to be a top priority. When choosing protection for their dogs, owners value effectiveness, parasite coverage, and length of protection the most, according to the company.

The survey also revealed that only 1 in 3 participants recognized that fleas and ticks pose a year-round risk. Additionally, half of the dog owners surveyed protect their dog from heartworm disease throughout the year.

"Parasites like tapeworms, fleas, and ticks can carry dangerous diseases and some of these can spread from dogs to humans," Casey Locklear, DVM, parasiticide lead for Elanco Animal Health said in the release.

 "The Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC) recommends year round prevention of parasites, even during the winter months and specifically mentions the need for monthly deworming of dogs with praziquantel in areas where a certain type of tapeworm—

“Credelio Quattro has incredibly broad spectrum against fleas and ticks because of the lotilaner component; tapeworms with the praziquantel; hookworms and roundworms with the pyrantel; and then heartworm prevention with moxidectin,” said Susan E. Little, DVM, PhD, DACVM, Krull-Ewing professor of parasitology at the Center for Veterinary Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, in an interview with 

. “So it [offers] a broad spectrum protection against a wide variety of parasites that dogs are going to encounter on a regular basis, and so we really need to make sure they’re protected.”

Credelio Quattro should be used with caution in dogs with a history of seizures or neurological disorders.

 Additionally, dogs should be tested for heartworm infections prior to Credelio Quattro administration, as it does not work against adult heartworm 

The products safety in breeding, pregnant, or lactating dogs has not been evaluated. Vomiting and diarrhea were the most commonly reported adverse reactions during clinical trials.

 Complete safety information can be found on the Credelio Quattro product label.

Now available: Credelio Quattro™ (lotilaner, moxidectin, praziquantel, and pyrantel chewable tablets) provides broadest[i] parasite protection of its kind. News release. Elanco Animal Health. January 23, 2025. Accessed January 28, 2025. 

https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/news-releases/now-available-credelio-quattro-lotilaner-moxidectin-praziquantel-and-pyrantel-chewable-tablets-provides-broadesti-parasite-protection-of-its-kind-302357947.html

Bautista-Alejandre A. FDA approves oral drug for broad canine protection against parasites. 

. October 7, 2024. Accessed January 28, 2025. 

https://www.dvm360.com/view/fda-approves-oral-drug-for-broad-canine-protection-against-parasites

Articles

Lotilaner, moxidectin, praziquantel, and pyrantel chewable tablets offer protection against 6 types of parasites

Credelio Quattro launches at VMX 

Fear Free, a leader in providing science and behavioral-based education to help alleviate and prevent fear, anxiety, and stress in animals, announced the launch of its newest program, the Emergency & Urgent Care Practice Certification program.

"Since our inception, Fear Free has been dedicated to empowering veterinary professionals with tools and education to transform how care is delivered," said Jennifer Merlo, DVM, vice president, operations, in an organizational release.

"This new Emergency & Urgent Care Veterinary Practice Certification program changes the standard of care for pets everywhere, ensuring that even in the most critical moments, FAS is minimized. We're excited about this program and the additional initiatives we have on the horizon to further elevate veterinary care."

According to the release, the program is aiming to bridge gaps between routine care and urgent or emergency scenarios by providing veterinary teams the necessary training and resources to implement Fear Free’s techniques into high-pressure environments.

 The certification touches base on specialized protocols for triage, treatment, talking to clients, and staff workflows as a way to ensure the physical and emotional wellbeing of patients and clients during emergency situations.

"The launch of this program is another pivotal step in our journey to make Fear Free the global standard in veterinary care. By expanding into emergency and urgent care, we're not just growing – we're transforming the industry to ensure pets everywhere receive compassionate low-stress care when they need it most,” explained Marty Becker, DVM, founder of Fear Free in regard to the latest program addition.

Fear Free was founded in 2016 and provides veterinary professionals, pet professionals, animal welfare communities, and clients resources developed by veterinary and pet experts around the world. Fear Free’s goal is to maintain veterinary healthcare teams as well as pet professionals as trusted health experts through educational materials on the emotional wellbeing, enrichment, and reduction of fear, stress and anxiety in pets.

 Veterinary professionals can either become Fear Free Certified individually or their clinic can become a Fear Free Certified clinic. Currently, Fear Free offers Fear Free Certified Veterinary General Practice, with Fear Free Certified Veterinary HouseCall practice apparently on the horizon.

"Since 2018, we've been able to reduce [Fear, anxiety, and stress] in Fear Free Certified Veterinary Practices by training every team member on our standards," said TD Steward, Director, Growth Strategies, in the release.

 "With the launch of this program, we're giving ER and Urgent Care practices an opportunity to adopt these standards in critical situations. This program allows teams to deliver the same exceptional level of care that pet owners have come to expect, even in the most challenging circumstances."

Veterinary professionals in attendance at the 

conference (VMX) can learn more about the new program at the Fear Free booth in the expo hall. Anyone not in attendance at VMX can learn more on the Fear Free website.

Fear Free® Expands Reach with the Launch of Emergency & Urgent Care Veterinary Practice Certification. News release. Fear Free. January 27, 2025. Accessed January 27, 2025. 

https://www.prweb.com/releases/fear-free-expands-reach-with-the-launch-of-emergency--urgent-care-veterinary-practice-certification-302360457.html

Fear Free. What is Fear Free & Why Is It Important? Fear Free. Accessed January 28, 2025. https://fearfreepets.com/about/what-is-fear-free/

The Emergency & Urgent Care Program will help veterinary practices ensure low-stress care in critical situations 

Fear Free announces new certification 

Alex Sigmund, DVM, DACVO provides tips on to spot corneal ulcers in veterinary patients, and how to manage them

Interview with Alex Sigmund, DVM, DACVO, on corneal ulcer management in general practice

During an interview with dvm360 ahead of his lectures at the Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) conference in Orlando, Florida, Alex Sigmund, DVM, DACVO, shared tips and tricks general practitioners can use with their patients to diagnose and manage corneal ulcers. Sigmund breaks down early signs of corneal ulcers veterinary professionals can be on the lookout for, the need for reevaluation, and the best Elizabethan collars to use for these patients.

The biggest things you can look out for, thankfully, the kind of the most obvious ones that would indicate you looking for an ulcer. So that'd be something like squinting, tearing, and redness to the eye. You can also start to see some redness to the cornea itself, but any of those things are going to tell you that you need you at least a fluorescein stain to look for that corneal ulcer. 

I'm a big proponent of just kind of lumping all the ophthalmology diagnostics together as an [ophthalmology] exam, so that you can just do a Schirmer stain and IOP [Intraocular pressure] on any of these red-eyed dogs, just because there's a lot of things that can contribute to each other that you can rule in or out pretty easily with that baseline level [ophthalmology] exam.

Videos

Alex Sigmund, DVM, DACVO, shares practical tips general practitioners can use for diagnosing and managing patients with corneal ulcers 

Corneal ulcers in general practice

Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM, discusses parasite awareness and control in a dvm360 interview at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo.

Varroa mites and their effect on honey bees

The care of honeybees requires understanding of the varroa mite and how it can affect an individual bee as well as its’ colony. To address this parasite and other apiary care topics, Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM, professor of zoological medicine at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine in Athens, presented a series of educational session in a bee symposium at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) presented by the North American Veterinary Community, on Sunday, January 26. Mayer further discussed parasite awareness and control of the Varroa mite in a 

The following is a transcript of the video:

Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM

: If you talk to a beekeeper, if you want to get involved in in honeybee health topics, you need to be aware of what we call ‘public enemy No. 1’: the Varroa mite. Unfortunately, the Varroa is more or less everywhere where honeybees are and they're probably a really big contributor to what has been termed earlier on as 

. So basically, [contributing] to the mystery of the massive die off of honeybees kept in captivity or managed honeybee colonies. And this happens on a multitude of issues.

So, one of the big issues is that while the bee is affected by the parasitic function of the Varroa mite—the Varroa mite, while it's feasting on the body—it also introduces a lot of viruses and other pathogens to the honeybee. Most notably is a virus called 

, which actually doesn't allow the bee to fly anymore, and therefore it can't provide any pollination services. But there's another slew of viruses that affect them too. And even if they survive and they can't fly and do stuff, it's just, it's just a horrible parasitic situation on that individual bee. And then if we add this all up, a horrible situation for the colony, for the population. So everybody that works with honeybees needs to be aware that this is basically our main, main enemy that we got the fight.

There's a lot of different drugs and regiments out there to try to control [the Varroa mite]. We can't really eradicate the Varroa mite anymore. It's established well everywhere, and [as of], I think, 2 years ago, it now actually established also in Australia. Australia [had] managed to avoid that. I think 2 years ago now, Australia has it, and it's going to spread like a wildfire. And now the beekeepers in Australia face exactly the same problem as beekeepers all over the world. And so this is a huge topic that one needs to just be aware of.

Jörg Mayer, DVM, MS, DABVP, DECZM, DACZM, discusses parasite awareness and control in a dvm360 interview at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo

Varroa mites and their effect on honeybees

In this video interview with dvm360, Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Parasitology), shares how to effectively 

Video interview with Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVIM (Parasitology)

During an interview with dvm360 head of her upcoming lectures at the Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX), Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology), explained the importance of veterinarians being aware of Cytauxzoonosis, a tick-borne disease in cats, due to its shifting geographic range, early clinical signs professionals can be aware of, diagnostic changes, and more. 

Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology): 

Some of the early clinical signs you might see may not necessarily be intuitive, and so I'll tell students when I'm giving them a refresher during their fourth year of veterinary school. Respiratory distress, high, high fever, [and] some of these cats are just flat out lethargic, like they're dying in front of you, and we often see them present sometime in the spring or early summer. And again, that's latitudinally contingent. So the further north you are, the further into summer those cats, well, early summer, right? That's when those cats are likely going to present.

If you're further south, you could see them early spring, quite frankly, whenever those ticks start becoming active as the temperatures warm up, and so being in tune to that respiratory distress, high fever, those are going to be 2 year big indications. And then when that disease progresses, a little more, cats become anemic. 

Lindsay Starkey, DVM, PhD, DACVM (Parasitology) shares the clinical presentation, progression, and diagnostic challenges for feline patients with cytauxzoonosis

Treating and managing Cytauxzoonosis in feline patients

New updates to the 2014 “Guidelines for the diagnosis and antimicrobial therapy of canine superficial bacterial folliculitis,” are underway, with one incoming revision suggesting that topical therapy be the first line treatment for superficial bacterial folliculitis, or pyoderma, according to Jason B. Pieper, DVM, MS, DACVD, assistant professor at Iowa State University.

 As Pieper explained in a lecture at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo (VMX) in Orlando, Florida, the first step in the treatment of pyoderma should now be topical therapy.

Pyoderma is a bacterial infection of the skin. It is divided based on the how deep the infection is in the skin and consists of surface, superficial, and deep pyoderma, with surface pyoderma being the most common form of the infection.

"Now one thing I will say…is superficial pyoderma does involve the hair follicles because again, the epidermis kind of goes down and surrounds….the hair shaft…with the hair follicle, so even infections down in that area are still considered a superficial pyoderma,” explained Pieper during his session.

When thinking about topical therapy for a pyoderma case, it is important to consider both the active ingredient that will be used and what the best formulation for the patient’s individual case is; as well as the frequency of the topical application, how labor intensive the therapy is, and what the realistic client compliance will be.

The antiseptic chlorhexidine is the most widely available antimicrobial, according to Pieper. It is effective against viruses, bacteria, and fungi and can work synergistically with other ingredients like miconazole. Addressing concerns over antimicrobial resistance to this ingredient, Pieper explained that there has been no documented clinical resistance to this antiseptic to date.

He also noted that higher concentrations of chlorhexidine are not always better than lower concentrations, citing a 2013 study on chlorhexidine shampoos in 0.8, 2, 3, and 4% concentrations that found larger zones of bacterial growth inhibition in shampoos with 2 and 3% chlorhexidine compared to the shampoos containing 0.8 and 4% chlorhexidine.

This ingredient has antibacterial, keratolytic, degreasing, and follicular flushing activity. “People use this for acne, so again, cleaning out the hair follicles and kind of breaking up the oils, stuff like that,” said Pieper.

However, benzoyl peroxide can cause excessive drying of the skin, which lead to increased pruritus. It could also potentially bleach fabrics like bedding. Additionally, the ingredient has a low number of formulations.

Sodium hypochlorite is similar to chlorhexidine in its effectiveness against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. “Historically people have talked about in human medicine using something called a Dakin’s solution. And what they would do is that they would go ahead and take bleach, dilute with water, put some baking soda in there, boil it to neutralize it, things like that, and…they would use it for children and do baths with some really resistant infections,” said Pieper. However, as Pieper explained, its drying effect is the concern.

“There is one study out there with just bleach and water, which is kind of what we think of with sodium hypochlorite, that did not show it to be drying when they used it, so that’s a nice benefit with this compared to say, benzoyl peroxide,” he added. There is a shampoo with salicylic acid (Command) that is available, said Pieper. Studies have shown that this shampoo is effective, according to his session.

This ingredient is widely used for decontamination. It works well against gram-positive bacteria, some gram-negative bacteria, and dermatophytes, according to Pieper. He explained that there is a veterinary shampoo available with this ingredient in a one-gallon container that could be an effective option for decontamination.

Considering the formulation that will be used for the patient is crucial, as it is important to consider which formulation will be best for the patient, location of the infection, formulation efficacy, and compliance. “There’s nothing worse than giving [patients] a product and they don’t use it at all—it’s not going to work at all,” said Pieper.

One of the oldest formulations, shampoo is labor intensive but is effective for generalized disease. As Pieper explained, shampoos have the ability to reach lesions that may have not been noticed. For shampoos, a contact time of 10 minutes is recommended, explained Pieper.

Although sprays can be easily applied, application can also be difficult with patients that have a thick haircoat. Moreover, compliance can be an issue with this type of formulation, as many cats and dogs are fearful of sprays.

“A lot of studies have shown that you’re going to need to apply that 1-2 times a day,” said Pieper, explaining that patients will need to be distracted after application to prevent treatment removal. Although relatively labor-intensive, sprays are useful for generalized lesions if wide areas are covered, as well as for small areas.

This formulation is available in a range of combination medications, including steroids. “I typically think of them as your triple threat-type product,” said Pieper, explaining that ear medication ointments can work really well.

Ointments also work well for localized lesions. This formulation will also be applied 1-2 times a day.

Wipes are a newer type of formulation. Applied 1-2 a day, these work best for localized lesions, especially in areas that are difficult to reach, according to Pieper. “I like them for paws, especially kind of those bulldog paws to get that kind of cheesy stuff in between,” he said. “It works really well to…get in there, wipe it out, and physically remove that debris.” He noted that the liquid in the wipes will also leave residual product in the area.

This formulation is the newest formulation, explained Pieper. Mousse is best for multifocal, as well as generalized lesions, depending on the dog, their coat length, thickness, affected area, etc. It is applied a few times a week, depending on the patient. According to Pieper, mousse is a “great alternative to bath.” However, some products can irritate ulcerated lesions.

Pieper JB. Updates in pyoderma: Diagnosis and treatment. Presented at: Veterinary Meeting & Expo; Orlando, FL. January 25-29, 2025.

Hillier A, Lloyd DH, Weese JS, et al. Guidelines for the diagnosis and antimicrobial therapy of canine superficial bacterial folliculitis (Antimicrobial Guidelines Working Group of the International Society for Companion Animal Infectious Diseases). 

Kloos I, Straubinger RK, Werckenthin C, Mueller RS. Residual antibacterial activity of dog hairs after therapy with antimicrobial shampoos. 

Jason B. Pieper, DVM, MS, DACVD, talked about pyoderma, including ingredients and formulations, in his lecture at the 2025 Veterinary Meeting & Expo