In 2016, my beloved bichon frise, Gus Gus, died from cancer, after a short illness and painful treatment.

Gus Gus’ death sparked the idea that there must be a better way to manage pet health, that technology can make pets’ lives healthier and happier, and that pet healthcare can and should be more data-driven. Five years later, that idea became Astro. 

At its core, Astro is a purpose-driven company. We are passionate about using the platform to enable pets to live longer, healthier, and happier lives. To help us accomplish that mission, when you sign up for Astro we’ll ask you to opt-in your pet’s data for veterinary research. We hope you say yes for a few reasons (and if you don’t opt-in at enrollment, you can always do so later via your account settings).

We believe that animals deserve the same high-quality care as humans. Animal treatments for things like cancer lag far behind human research—in some cases by 20+ years—and it costs about $100 million and takes about five years to bring a pet drug to market. We think aggregated and anonymized data from Astro can accelerate R&D, reduce costs, and bring us closer to a day when every animal is able to enjoy personalized healthcare. Allowing Astro to leverage your pet’s data will help us promote more research and expand its diversity, which we hope will in turn lead to faster cures.

We also want to better understand how an animal’s care outside of a clinic can prolong health. Astro’s research seeks to better understand the complex interplay between clinical healthcare and an animal’s environment. This information helps us deliver more actionable insights to you as a pet parent and unlock the web of traits and behaviors that might extend high-quality life.

As always, we believe in strict privacy. Your pet was given an Astro ID during enrollment. This “blinds” your pet’s identifying information from researchers outside of Astro. We will never sell or disclose this information to others unless compelled to do so by a court of law. For more information, please see our blog post on how Astro uses your data.

Thank you for joining us on this journey.