Horse owners will be able to prevent painful gastric ulcers in their horses with a new omeprazole product that has just been approved for equine use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The product will be available through veterinarians without a prescription, and it has been shown to effectively prevent ulcers in horses when given for 28 days during the time of stressful activities.

Merial pharmaceutical company sought approval for the new drug, UlcerGard, after studies last year showed that one-fourth of a treatment dose (1 mg/kg) of its ulcer treatment drug GastroGard (omeprazole) effectively prevented ulcer formation in horses. It had already been shown that half the treatment dose could prevent recurrence of ulcers, but with this new discovery, the company decided it could make ulcer prevention more easily available and the dosing of the compound more user-friendly