Laverdia (Verdinexor) for Dog Lymphoma: What the FDA Approval Actually Means

Laverdia is now fully FDA approved for treating lymphoma in dogs, and it is the first oral lymphoma drug a dog owner can give at home. Both of those things are true and genuinely significant.

Here is the part that gets left out of most coverage. Laverdia is an antineoplastic drug, which is to say chemotherapy, and the label reflects that. You are instructed to wear chemotherapy-resistant gloves to handle the tablets. Pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, and nursing women should not handle the drug or come into contact with a treated dog's feces, urine, vomit, or saliva. Neither should children. Gloves are advised for the dog's toys and bowls, and those bowls get washed separately (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

That is not a reason to avoid Laverdia. It is a reason to stop describing it as "just a quiet moment at home with a treat." Convenience is real here. Gentleness is a different claim, and the trial data do not support it.

Key Points

The FDA granted full approval on December 18, 2025, and announced it publicly on January 16, 2026 (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025, 2026). Laverdia had been available under conditional approval since January 2021.

In the pivotal trial, dogs on Laverdia went a median of 37 days before their disease progressed, compared with 23 days for dogs on placebo. The difference was statistically significant (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

The control group received identical placebo tablets, and both the veterinary team and owners were masked to assignment. This was a well-designed trial, not a comparison against untreated dogs (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Side effects were common. Anorexia occurred in 74% of treated dogs, vomiting in 61%, lethargy in 61%, weight loss in 52%, and diarrhea in 43% (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Just under 30% of dogs in the Laverdia group completed the 56-day study. Most who did not had progressive disease, an adverse event, or died (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Handling precautions apply during treatment and for three days after the last dose, and they extend to waste cleanup, laundry, and food bowls (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

What Laverdia Is and How It Works

Verdinexor is a selective inhibitor of nuclear export. Cells contain tumor suppressor proteins and growth regulatory proteins whose job is to keep cell division under control. Cancer cells use an export system to push those proteins out of the nucleus, where they cannot do that job. Verdinexor blocks the export route, so the proteins stay where they belong and keep working. The drug is selectively cytotoxic for cells with genomic damage, meaning tumor cells (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

The mechanism is elegant and it is genuinely different from conventional chemotherapy, which mostly targets cells that are dividing quickly. That difference is the reason for the interest.

It is given by mouth, with food. Absorption is three to five times higher in a fed dog than a fasted one, which matters more than it sounds: the drug causes inappetence, and a dog who is not eating well is also absorbing less of it (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). Your veterinarian will set the schedule.

What the Approval Means, and What It Does Not

Conditional approval, granted in January 2021, allowed Laverdia on the market while the sponsor gathered effectiveness data. That pathway exists for drugs addressing unmet needs in limited patient populations, and canine lymphoma qualified because it affects fewer than 80,000 dogs a year in the United States (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2026).

Full approval means the sponsor met the standard of substantial evidence of effectiveness (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). That is a real regulatory milestone and it took a properly controlled trial to earn.

It does not mean certainty about how any individual dog will do, and it does not mean the drug performs like CHOP. It means one adequate and well-controlled study showed a statistically significant benefit on a specific endpoint. Knowing what that endpoint was is the difference between informed hope and a surprise.

The Trial, in Plain Numbers

The pivotal study enrolled 160 dogs with B-cell or T-cell lymphoma at ten sites between February 2022 and July 2025. Sixty percent were newly diagnosed and 40% had relapsed after prior chemotherapy. Most had Stage III or IV disease. Dogs were randomized four to one to Laverdia or to placebo tablets identical in appearance, and both the study personnel and the owners were masked to which their dog was receiving (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

That design deserves credit. Placebo-controlled, masked, randomized trials are uncommon in veterinary oncology, and this one was run under Good Clinical Practice.

The primary endpoint was time to progression. Among the 134 dogs evaluable for effectiveness, median time to progression was 37 days in the Laverdia group, with a confidence interval running from 29 to 57 days, and 23 days in the placebo group, with a confidence interval from 14 to 30 days. The difference was statistically significant (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Two weeks of additional median time before progression is a real effect and it is a modest one. It is worth holding both of those thoughts at once. For a family who cannot access or afford multi-agent injectable chemotherapy, a modest effect is not nothing. For a family weighing Laverdia against CHOP, it is important to know these are not comparable in magnitude, and the trial did not compare them.

One more number that says a lot: 31 of 106 dogs in the Laverdia group, about 29%, completed the full 56-day study, compared with 2 of 28 in the placebo group. The main reasons dogs did not finish were progressive disease, adverse events, and death (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). Lymphoma is an aggressive disease and these were sick dogs. That context matters in both directions.

Side Effects, Which Are Not Rare

This is where the popular framing of Laverdia as the gentle option falls apart.

In the pivotal study, adverse reactions in the Laverdia group included anorexia in 74% of dogs, vomiting in 61%, lethargy in 61%, weight loss in 52%, and diarrhea in 43%. Of the dogs with anorexia, 56% received a medication to improve appetite. Elevated ALP appeared in 23% and elevated ALT in 22%. Serious adverse events were reported in 22% of Laverdia dogs and 15% of placebo dogs (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Some of that reflects the disease rather than the drug, which is exactly why the placebo group is useful. Anorexia occurred in 52% of placebo dogs and lethargy in 55%, so those are substantially lymphoma. Weight loss tells a clearer story: 52% on Laverdia versus 12% on placebo (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

A dog who stops eating is the central practical problem with this drug. It affects quality of life, it affects how much drug is absorbed, and it is the thing most likely to end treatment. Ask your veterinarian for anti-nausea and appetite medication before you need it rather than after, the same principle we cover in our guide to supplies to have before treatment begins.

Safe Handling at Home

The label instructions here are specific and they are not optional (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

Wear protective disposable chemotherapy-resistant gloves to handle the tablets. Do not split or crush them, since that breaks the protective coating. Give the tablet immediately after taking it from the bottle, and if your dog spits it out, handle the moistened tablet with gloves. If you hide it in a treat, confirm your dog ate the whole thing.

Precautions extend to your dog's waste during treatment and for three days after the last dose. Wear gloves for feces, urine, vomit, and saliva. Collect contaminated material with disposable towels, bag it, seal it, and wash your hands afterward. Do not let your dog eliminate where people will contact it. Keep soiled laundry separate from the rest. Wear gloves for toys and bowls, and wash bowls separately.

Pregnant women, women who may become pregnant, and nursing women should not handle Laverdia or contact a treated dog's bodily fluids. Based on animal studies, the drug can cause birth defects and can affect female fertility, and it can affect male fertility based on both animal and human studies. Children should not contact the drug or the treated dog's fluids either (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025).

If someone is exposed without precautions, or if the drug is accidentally swallowed, seek medical advice right away and bring the package insert or client information sheet with you.

If the only available caregiver in your home falls into one of those groups, say so at the appointment before the prescription is written. It changes the plan. Our article on chemotherapy safety for the rest of your household covers the broader version of these precautions.

Three Claims Worth Checking

"About 80% of canine lymphomas go untreated." This figure circulates widely and comes from oncologists speaking in trade press rather than from a published study ("FDA grants full approval," 2026). It may well be roughly right, and the underlying point about access is real. It is an estimate, not a statistic, and it should be presented that way.

"Laverdia is especially good against T-cell lymphoma." This traces to an earlier open-label phase II study of 58 dogs, in which the overall objective response rate was 37% and the response rate among T-cell dogs was 71% (Sadowski et al., 2018). That is an encouraging signal from a small subgroup in a single-arm study. The pivotal trial that earned full approval was 81% B-cell and 18% T-cell, and its published effectiveness results were not broken out by immunophenotype (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). Promising is the honest word. Proven is not.

"Laverdia does not cause resistance to other chemotherapy." What is accurate is that it has not been shown to cause cross-resistance. That is an absence of evidence rather than evidence of absence, and it is a reasonable thing to ask your oncologist about directly rather than to assume.

Where Laverdia Fits

Multi-agent injectable chemotherapy remains the treatment with the longest track record for canine lymphoma. Laverdia is an additional option, and it is most often discussed for dogs whose families cannot pursue conventional chemotherapy, for dogs who cannot tolerate it, and for relapsed cases.

One detail from the trial protocol is worth borrowing. Dogs receiving complementary or alternative medicines that the investigator believed could interfere with the endpoint were excluded from the study (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2025). If a trial designed to measure this drug did not want unknown supplements in the mix, that is a reasonable standard for your own dog. Bring every supplement to your oncologist rather than adding one because it is marketed for immune support.

When to Contact a Veterinarian

Call your veterinary team promptly if your dog is on Laverdia and you notice:

• Any decline in appetite, even a mild one. This is the most common adverse effect and it is far easier to manage early.
• Repeated vomiting, vomiting with blood, or diarrhea that is severe or bloody.
• Noticeable weight loss, or a dog whose collar or harness suddenly fits differently.
• Yellowing of the gums or the whites of the eyes.
• Fever, extreme lethargy, weakness, collapse, or pale gums.
• Muscle tremors, unsteadiness on the feet, a seizure, or any change in vision.
• Bruising, unexplained bleeding, or blood in the urine.
• Any sudden change in how your dog is doing that worries you.

Contact a physician, not a veterinarian, if a person in your household is exposed to the drug or to a treated dog's bodily fluids without precautions, and bring the client information sheet.

Questions to Ask Your Veterinarian

Is my dog's lymphoma B-cell or T-cell, and does that change what you would recommend?

How does Laverdia compare to CHOP for my dog specifically, in terms of expected benefit, cost, and visits?

What are we hoping this achieves, and how and when will we know whether it is working?

Which anti-nausea and appetite medications should I have on hand before we start?

Who in my household can safely handle this drug, and what do I do if that is a problem for us?

What bloodwork will you monitor, and how often?

What would make you stop or change treatment?

If Laverdia does not work, what are the next options, and does using it now affect them?

Are there clinical trials my dog might be eligible for?

References

FDA grants full approval to verdinexor tablets for canine lymphoma. (2026, January). dvm360. https://www.dvm360.com/view/fda-grants-full-approval-to-laverdia-for-canine-lymphoma

Sadowski, A. R., Gardner, H. L., Borgatti, A., Wilson, H., Vail, D. M., Lachowicz, J., Manley, C., Turner, A., Klein, M. K., Waite, A., Sahora, A., & London, C. A. (2018). Phase II study of the oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export (SINE) KPT-335 (verdinexor) in dogs with lymphoma. BMC Veterinary Research, 14(1), Article 250. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-018-1587-9

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2025, December 18). Freedom of information summary: Original new animal drug application NADA 141-614, LAVERDIA (verdinexor tablets). https://animaldrugsatfda.fda.gov/adafda/app/search/public/document/downloadFoi/17795

U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2026, January 16). FDA grants full approval of first oral treatment for lymphoma in dogs. CVM Updates. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/cvm-updates/fda-grants-full-approval-first-oral-treatment-lymphoma-dogs