INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- The pet industry relies heavily on "borrowed science" — human or in vitro studies extrapolated to dogs and cats — but AI is making it easier for consumers to spot the gap between claims and actual pet-specific data
- Radical Science's Discovery platform conducts decentralized, placebo-controlled pet clinicals using animals living normal lives rather than kennel colonies, with study populations in the hundreds
- Studies are delivered in six to eight months at a starting cost of $70,000 — a fraction of the time and cost of traditional academic or CRO lab models
- Results include not just raw data but actionable insights for R&D, innovation pipeline and marketing strategy
- Efficacy will be the defining currency of the next decade: brands that can't prove their products work in dogs and cats specifically will be left behind
Interview with Bill Bae, Chief Commercial Officer, Radical Science
Petfood Forum Chat: This is a special report from Petfood Forum 2026. I’m Jackie Roembke, the editor-in-chief of WATT Global Media’s Feed Brands, and I’m the host of Petfood Forum Chats. I sat down with industry leaders and innovators to get their take on the trends shaping the global pet food industry
From ingredients and processing to sustainability and the future of pet nutrition, take a minute to listen in on those conversations.
Bill Bae, Chief Commercial Officer, Radical Science: I'm Bill Bae. I'm the chief commercial officer at Radical Science. I've been in this role for about seven months. Before that, I was with ADM in a variety of roles. I've always been drawn to the pet space and to bringing real, science-based efficacy to market.
Petfood Forum Chat: In your opinion, what are the most important industry or consumer trends shaping the industry right now, and why?
Bae: The biggest consumer trend shaping the industry is the demand for efficacy. That pressure will force those in the ingredients space, the finished product space and elsewhere to actually pay attention to what's going into a final pet product — rather than saying "this might work" or "this should work."
Petfood Forum Chat: How do you believe consumers are gauging that efficacy?
Bae: What we're seeing in the human space is playing out in the pet space as well. AI has disrupted everything, and pet owners are getting smarter — whether they're buying for themselves or their pets. The pet segment today relies heavily on what I call borrowed science. I'd estimate less than 10% of pet products on the market have actually gone through a pet-specific clinical trial — in dogs or cats. Most are pointing to in vitro studies, rat studies or human studies and extrapolating from there. That's simply not the same thing.
What consumers are doing now — for themselves and for their pets — is taking a picture of a product in Costco or Petco or on an e-commerce platform, uploading it to ChatGPT and asking, "Does this actually work?" And for most products on the market today, the answer they're likely to get back is: "No, there are no pet-specific studies." Or if there is a pet clinical, it may have been conducted on 10 dogs rather than a statistically meaningful population. That's where we come in.
Radical Science is a health tech and data company. We deliver gold-standard, placebo-controlled, open-trial-arm studies at a fraction of the cost of traditional kennel colony labs, with study populations starting in the hundreds rather than the tens or twenties.
Petfood Forum Chat: Have you seen any technologies here at Pet Food Forum or elsewhere that support those trend lines?
Bae: Technology-wise, AI is disrupting everything — that's the overarching story. Here at Pet Food Forum, the companies that impress me are the ones that have actually conducted pet-specific clinicals in dogs and cats, rather than those relying on language like "may," "might" or "should" — which signals they're leaning on human or in vitro data.
Petfood Forum Chat: Explain how Radical Science's innovations align with those trends.
Bae: The product we're showcasing and partnering with customers on is called Discovery. Let me explain how Radical Science has disrupted the clinical space with it — and I'll keep it focused on pet since that's what we're here for.
Today, if you approach a university veterinary lab — Ohio State, for example — and ask them to run a clinical to demonstrate efficacy for your ingredient, formula or finished product, you are at the mercy of their timeline. And in a centralized model, you're paying them to serve as your project management office. Kennel colony labs typically work with an N of 30 to 50 beagles at any given time.
Beyond the scientific limitations, there's an animal welfare issue. Dogs living in kennel colonies essentially live in a shelter environment around the clock with no meaningful interaction — they exist solely to be tested. We address that by drawing from our panel of more than 100,000 Americans, more than half of whom have pets, and by recruiting animals that live normal everyday lives rather than sterile lab settings.
The analogy I use: if Ford says a new Explorer completed 100,000 miles in a laboratory wind tunnel with no problems, versus Chevy saying a Tahoe completed 100,000 miles driven by a cab driver in New York City with no problems — most people are going with the Chevy. Real-world conditions matter.
On timing: with a traditional lab or academic institution, you may wait eight months to a year just for your study to begin, with no certainty on when you'll see results. Because our model is fully decentralized and in-house — from recruitment to biostatisticians to AI-driven data analysis — we're turning results around in six to eight months. And you're not just getting a CSV file. We help you interpret the data, evaluate your R&D pipeline and tailor your marketing messaging for the best return on investment.
On cost: traditional pet clinical labs or academic institutions can run into seven figures. We start at $70,000 for studies of up to hundreds of dogs — in a decentralized setting, not a kennel colony — and the data you get back is actionable.
Petfood Forum Chat: How are you finding and recruiting those 100,000 participants?
Bae: That's one of our secret sauces. We've built a program that allows us to target and recruit the right people who want to participate in these studies. And worth noting: on the human side, our panel of 100,000 Americans is built to reflect the actual U.S. population — 50% male, 50% female, 25% ethnic minorities, 20% rural.
In the pet space, that precision translates directly. We can compare the GI system of a dog living in New York City to one living on a cattle farm in Texas — with a scalpel, not a broad blast.
Petfood Forum Chat: Where do you see things moving in the next five to 10 years?
Bae: Efficacy is the currency — full stop. Without proof of results in the intended species, you will be left behind. We're already seeing influencer-driven supplement marketing decline on the human side because consumers who take nutraceuticals tend to do their research, and AI has become a personalized nutrition advisor for a lot of them. That's coming to the pet space too.
Today, if you ask AI about a pet probiotic — and most of them are built around strains like E. faecium or Bacillus subtilis that have been around for 50 or 60 years — it will likely tell you the supporting research is outdated and not pet-specific. And a lot of formulating today still amounts to: if five grams works for a human, scale it by body weight for a 50-pound dog. There's math behind it. But math is not efficacy. Without data derived from dogs and cats specifically, the industry will be left behind.
Petfood Forum Chat: The 2026 edition of Petfood Forum was held April 26–28 in Kansas City, Missouri. For more Petfood Forum news and in-depth event coverage, visit petfoodindustry.com.
