Affordable Pet Labs Is Testing Whether Heartworm Screening Can Skip the Needle

The Scottsdale company is enrolling more than 1,500 dogs in 52 cities to validate a patent pending, needle free at home test against the standard blood draw.

By Good Company Editorial Desk

2026-10-27

The News

Affordable Pet Labs, a direct to consumer veterinary laboratory based in Scottsdale, Arizona, announced on October 26 a nationwide validation study of a new at home heartworm test that the company says can collect a dog's sample at home without a needle and analyze it in its laboratory. The method is patent pending, and the company is explicit that it is not on sale yet.

The study is enrolling now and expects to collect more than 1,500 samples across the 52 cities where Affordable Pet Labs already sends technicians into pet owners' homes. Every enrolled dog gets two things at the same visit, which the company says takes about 15 minutes. First, a technician draws the standard blood test that veterinarians rely on today, testing for heartworm antigen and for microfilariae, the immature stage of the parasite. Second, the technician collects the new non blood sample. The laboratory then runs the new method in parallel and measures, dog by dog, how closely it agrees with the blood test.

Results from the standard blood test are the test of record for every dog in the study. They are reported to the owner and to the dog's veterinarian within 2 to 3 business days after the laboratory receives the sample, the company says, and any dog that tests positive is referred to its veterinarian for follow up. Results from the new test are shared with participants only after the study is complete, and no decision about prevention or treatment is made from them.

"This is not a product or service announcement, yet. We are announcing a study and asking dog owners to help us prove this new testing is as reliable as the current methods," said Dr. Joseph Menicucci, co-founder of Affordable Pet Labs. "The dogs in this study get the best heartworm test available (same as their veterinarian will do) today, for free, drawn in their own living room. In exchange, we get the samples we need to validate the new test honestly and quickly, including the possibility that the answer is no."

Why It Matters

The company is aiming at a specific bottleneck in preventive care. Heartworm prevention requires a prescription, and in most states that prescription requires a negative heartworm test every year, according to the announcement. If a dog is not tested, the dog generally does not get prevention, even though heartworm disease itself is described by the company as devastating and preventable. In that framing, the test is not a diagnostic extra. It is the gate that decides whether a much larger, recurring prevention market can reach a dog at all.

That is why the study design matters as much as the technology. Affordable Pet Labs says independent researchers are setting the acceptance thresholds and reviewing the results, and that if the new method does not meet those thresholds, it will say so and continue offering its other in home and at home testing. Studies of this kind usually happen in academic settings over years, the company notes. Running one through an existing field network is an attempt to get a rigorous answer faster, in real homes.

There is also a distribution point inside the science. If the method validates, the company says it plans to offer it nationwide direct to pet parents, through at home collection kits that need no needle and through its existing 52 city field team network, a footprint it says would normally take years to build. The study is also a test of whether a home first laboratory can turn its technician network into a national screening channel.

"We are accelerating this because we know how many pets are not on prevention simply because the annual test is out of reach," Menicucci said. "If the barrier is testing, the answer is to fix testing. We have the field network to do that, and we are asking independent researchers to hold us to the standard."

The Numbers

More than 1,500: samples Affordable Pet Labs expects to collect in the validation study
52: cities in the company's field network, and the cities where study enrollment is open
124: technicians serving pets across the country, according to the company
16: new cities added in the past 12 months
About 15 minutes: length of the single home visit each participant is asked to schedule
2 to 3 business days: time the company says it takes to send standard blood test results to the owner and the veterinarian after the laboratory receives the sample
7 months: minimum age for dogs eligible to enroll
September 2019: the month Affordable Pet Labs was founded by veterinarians Dr. Rory Lubold and Dr. Joseph Menicucci
4.9 stars: the customer rating the company cites for its service
Hundreds of thousands: pets the company says it has tested to date, against a stated mission to test one million pets nationwide

What It Means For You

If you run a veterinary practice, read this as a channel question, not just a product question. The proposed flow keeps the veterinarian in the loop: owners would share the result with their veterinarian and receive a prevention prescription from that veterinarian, or through a telehealth visit where state law allows it. The risk to manage is the opposite flow, where a home result arrives without a clear handoff. Practices that want a role in this model should decide now what they will accept, how results should be shared, and how a positive result gets a fast follow up appointment.

If you operate boarding, daycare, or shelter and rescue programs, note who the study is courting. Affordable Pet Labs says it welcomes rescue and shelter partnerships alongside owned dogs, and it describes itself as a market leader in facility testing for boarding and daycare operators. Dogs recently diagnosed with heartworm and not yet treated are especially valuable to the study. That makes shelters and rescues a recruiting channel as well as a future customer segment, and it is worth asking what participation earns your dogs today.

If you build or sell pet health products, the discipline is the lesson. The company is spending on a 1,500 plus sample validation, with independent thresholds, before it sells anything, and publicly accepting that the answer could be no. In a category full of at home claims, that sequence (prove agreement with the gold standard first, launch second) is the credibility play. Copy the sequence, not just the at home label.

If you are a retailer or a prevention brand, watch the prescription gate. Anything that credibly lowers the friction of the annual test expands the pool of dogs eligible for prevention. That is demand creation upstream of your shelf, your pharmacy, and your subscription program, provided state rules and veterinary handoffs are handled cleanly.

What To Watch

First, the result itself. The only number that will decide this story is how closely the new method agrees with the standard blood test across those 1,500 plus samples, judged against thresholds set by independent researchers. The company has not announced a completion date, and enrollment stays open until the study reaches its target, so timing is the first unknown.

Second, what happens if the answer is mixed. A method that works well in one segment and poorly in another could lead to a narrower launch, a second round, or no launch at all. The company's willingness to publish a negative result will be tested if the data are not clean.

Third, the state law layer. The planned offer depends on owners sharing results with a veterinarian and, where state law allows, on telehealth prescribing. Watch how that workflow is described if a commercial service is announced, because it will differ by state.

Fourth, whether the model travels beyond heartworm. Affordable Pet Labs already offers in home blood work and mail in fecal, urine, and parasite kits, plus a PetWell+ wellness plan. A validated needle free sample type for one annual test would be a template it could try to extend to other routine screening, and competitors will be reading the results for exactly that reason.

Sources

Affordable Pet Labs announcement via GlobeNewswire, "Affordable Pet Labs Launches Nationwide Validation Study of an At-Home Heartworm Test, and Invites Dog Owners in 52 Cities to Help," October 26, 2026: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/10/26/3388051/0/en/affordable-pet-labs-launches-nationwide-validation-study-of-an-at-home-heartworm-test-and-invites-dog-owners-in-52-cities-to-help.html
WiseVoter News summary, "Affordable Pet Labs Tests New At-Home Heartworm Method," October 26, 2026: https://wisevoter.com/world/us/2026/10/26/affordable-pet-labs-home-heartworm-test