Affordable Pet Labs opens a 1,500-sample study of a needle-free heartworm test

Affordable Pet Labs is asking dog owners in 52 cities to help prove a heartworm test can work without a blood draw. The veterinarian-founded lab, which sends technicians to draw samples at owners' homes, opened the validation study on October 26th, 2026 and expects more than 1,500 samples. The patent-pending test is not for sale yet.

Dogs must be at least 7 months old to enroll. Whether the test ever launches depends on accuracy thresholds set by an independent review committee.

"This is not a product or service announcement, yet," said co-founder Joseph Menicucci, who is also the company's COO.

Every dog in the study still gets the blood test

A technician draws the standard heartworm test, which checks for antigen and microfilariae, at the owner's home. At the same visit the technician collects a non-blood sample for the new test.

The lab then compares the two results dog by dog. Owners get the blood test result within 2 to 3 business days. The new test's results go to them only after the study ends.

The company wants dogs on prevention, dogs off it, and dogs recently diagnosed but not yet treated. It also welcomes rescue and shelter partners.

Participants get the blood test free, optional bloodwork at a discount, and a credit for a free at-home test if the service launches. Enrollment runs through the company's study page until it hits its target.

If the new test misses the committee's thresholds, Menicucci said, the company will say so and keep offering its blood, fecal and urine testing.

The annual test is the gate to a prevention prescription

Heartworm prevention needs a prescription, and in most states that prescription needs a negative heartworm test every year, the company said. The American Heartworm Society's guidelines, updated in 2024, call for annual antigen and microfilaria testing in dogs.

Menicucci said the annual test being out of reach keeps many pets off prevention. "If the barrier is testing, the answer is to fix testing," he said.

The disease keeps moving. The society's latest incidence survey, run in early 2026 on 2025 test data, put Texas first and found new hot spots well outside the Gulf Coast. Embrace Pet Insurance reported that heartworm diagnosis claims rose 201% from 2020 to 2025.

A home test would pull heartworm screening out of the clinic

Today that annual screen is a clinic job, often run on in-clinic kits such as IDEXX's SNAP 4Dx Plus, the tick and heartworm screen Antech challenged in a JAVMA study this month.

Affordable Pet Labs plans a different route. If the study passes, it would sell the test direct to owners through home kits and its field teams. Owners would share results with a veterinarian, and the prescription could come from that vet or from a telehealth vet where state law allows.

That puts clinics, telehealth platforms and prevention makers in the same picture. Zoetis published new heartworm prevention data this month. The company invited practices, shelters, telehealth platforms and animal health companies to contact Menicucci, with study details shared under a confidentiality agreement.

The lab has the field network to try. Founded in September 2019, it says it has 124 technicians, added 16 new cities in the past 12 months, and has tested hundreds of thousands of pets toward a goal of one million.

Until the committee rules, the needle stays.

Source: Affordable Pet Labs via GlobeNewswire