Of mice and little humans: A comparison of the issues facing drug delivery to wildlife and pediatric patients.

Despite them being two very different patient populations, wildlife and pediatrics share many of the same challenges when it comes to drug development, delivery and the regulatory and clinical factors that impact on development of effective medicines. Drug delivery to wildlife species for prevention and treatment of disease, for conservation or pest control, is an emerging field of research. The current global H5N1 avian flu outbreaks has highlighted zoonotic disease and made us acutely aware of the important link between human health and wildlife health, however effective treatment of wildlife faces significant practical challenges and a paucity of quantitative data. Pediatric patients are also disadvantaged under current development paradigms, in part through ethical hurdles, but also through biopharmaceutical and clinical practice complications. Here, we provide a comparison of the challenges faced with the development of oral formulations for pediatric and wildlife patients and identify areas of translation from one field to the other that can benefit both of these populations. More broadly, realisation of the nexus between prevention of zoonotic diseases and healthy aging from child through to late adulthood is important for the health of humanity in the framework of One Health.