South America as the Next Frontier for Animal Health R&D: Six Takeaways from Xeptiva’s Josefina Correa

South America as the Next Frontier for Animal Health R&D: Six Takeaways from Xeptiva’s Josefina Correa

Insights from Josefina Correa, co-founder and CEO of Xeptiva Therapeutics, a clinical-stage animal health biotech built out of Uruguay. Shared during Prelude’s Animal Health Insights webinar series.

For most animal health R&D teams in the United States and Europe, “South America” still registers as one thing, if it registers at all: a place to run something cheaply. That instinct is quietly getting expensive. Across Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, scientists are turning research into companies, governments are funding the early science, and first-in-class programs are advancing through the clinic. The map of where animal health innovation happens is changing, and most teams have not looked closely enough to notice.

Josefina Correa has lived both sides of that map. She spent six years in the US, running the NIH-backed commercialization program at the Larta Institute in Los Angeles, coaching dozens of life-science startups a year. Then she went home to Uruguay and co-founded Xeptiva Therapeutics out of a decade of research at the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo. Xeptiva now develops first-in-class therapeutic vaccines for chronic conditions in companion animals, with lead programs in osteoarthritis pain and atopic dermatitis in dogs, built by a team of 14 on about $5M raised. On a recent Animal Health Insights webinar with Prelude CEO Tommy Jackson, she made the case for the region and was honest about its gaps. Six takeaways stood out.

1. “Cheaper” is not “lower quality”

The first thing outsiders get wrong is the reflex that a lower cost means a lesser result. “People in the north hear South America R&D and think science is cheap,” Correa said. “And in their minds, cheap means less quality. That’s absolutely not true.” Costs can be lower for structural reasons, but the science holds up. Her explanation for why is simple and worth sitting with: “Our real power tool is people. How we are trained as scientists, we compete with anybody in the world, at the same level.” The savings come from proximity, speed, and a lean operating style, not from cutting corners on the work.

2. There is no single “South America”

The second mistake is treating the region as one bucket. “South America isn’t one thing,” she said. “It’s a whole pie with multiple pieces.” Each country brings different strengths. Uruguay offers strong institutions and the ability to move fast and close, with almost everyone in the ecosystem a short drive apart. Brazil brings scale. Argentina and Chile have their own momentum. They do not even all share a language. Any team evaluating the region needs to pick the country that fits the job, rather than forming a single opinion about “LATAM” and applying it everywhere.

3. Traceability and fast adoption signal a culture of quality

Uruguay is known for one of the most traceable cattle populations in the world, and Correa framed that reputation as a window into something broader. “Traceability is an example of quality,” she said. “It’s how the world learned to trust us. That reputation has permeated every layer of what we do.” The same culture shows up in how quickly the country adopts new technology and data systems. Correa works in companion animals rather than cattle, but she sees local institutions already operating at that level of data discipline, which is exactly the foundation regulated research runs on.

4. The regional edge is lean, relationship-driven execution

Xeptiva’s early story is a case study in doing a lot with a little. The team ran its first proof-of-concept work in client-owned dogs, and got there without a big-pharma machine behind them. They recruited through a tight-knit veterinary network, partnered with the largest local university’s veterinary school and its pain specialist, and leaned on trust. “You always need one crazy human being who trusts you,” Correa said. “One vet said, let me try it. Then we said, wait, we need a protocol.” When they later needed to enroll roughly 60 dogs in a small country, they used every channel they could: vet clinics, media, social, even flyers at neighborhood dog fairs.

That resonated with Tommy Jackson, who noted that patient recruitment is the single biggest bottleneck he sees across sponsors, with some studies enrolling a single animal in a year. Xeptiva’s community-driven approach is a reminder that tight networks can move faster than large organizations expect. The same lean instinct shaped manufacturing. With only one GMP-certified contract manufacturer in Uruguay for their product type, Xeptiva embedded two of its own technicians inside the facility to shorten the feedback loop. “The next day we’re making changes to improve the next batch,” Correa said. “It helps that they’re next door.”

5. The real bottleneck is growth capital and scale-up infrastructure

Correa was refreshingly candid about where the region still falls short. Asked what would most accelerate the ecosystem, her answer was “money, spent smart.” The early stages are largely solved, with seed rounds and government grants available to get a company off the ground. The gap opens at scale. Growth-stage capital is scarce, and so is the infrastructure that comes with maturity: world-class CROs, CMOs, and lab space. Founders looking for growth money often still have to look abroad, and not every foreign fund is flexible about where the company lives. Building that missing layer, she argued, is the region’s next job, and it is starting to happen as the number of startups grows.

6. Partner as peers, and bring in specialists earlier

The clearest advice for any global company eyeing the region was about posture. The approach that fails is treating South America as a remote, cheap vendor to be managed from headquarters. The approach that works is presence. “The teams that win come here, stay, see the people, and say let’s partner,” she said. Her concrete suggestion: choose one small project, run it end to end with one university or one startup, and let it build your network from there. “We’re not a discount lab. Come with the mentality to partner with peers.”

She applied the same lesson to her own company. Asked what she would do differently, she pointed straight at how the studies were run. “If I did it again, I’d outsource more, earlier,” she said. “There are companies like Prelude that do this every day, and their standards are just there.” A lean team can and should improvise in the beginning. But there is a point where handing trial execution and data to specialists who run studies for a living is the faster, cleaner path.

The Questions the Audience Wanted Answered

With several audience questions answered live during the session, a few threads added depth beyond the main takeaways.

Are there other startups in Latin America working in companion animal therapeutics?

More every month, Correa said. The regional mix has moved from mostly livestock a few years ago to roughly an even split between livestock and companion animal, and she expects companion animal to keep gaining. Some target the same indications Xeptiva does, but she noted that Xeptiva’s approach is global first-in-class rather than a local copy of an existing product.

What would most accelerate the ecosystem?

Capital, spent wisely. The early stages are covered by seed rounds and government grants. The money and infrastructure that support scale-up are not, so companies hit a wall when they try to grow. Correa would put funding into that growth-stage gap first, and into building the CROs, CMOs, and lab space the region will need as its startup count climbs.

How has investor appetite changed?

It has grown noticeably. When Xeptiva started, investors wanted to see spreadsheets and customers, a hard conversation for a biotech years away from revenue. Now dedicated biotech-focused funds are appearing across Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and, more recently, Uruguay. The specialization is early, but the direction is clear.

What should a global animal health R&D leader keep in mind?

Two things. First, do not underestimate the quality of the science and the teams. Second, do not try to run everything from headquarters and treat the region as a cheap vendor, because that is not how the work gets done locally. The relationships that produce results start with showing up, seeing the teams, and running one focused project end to end.

What This Means for Your R&D Strategy

The thread running through the whole conversation is that South America is no longer only a place to save money on a study. It is a place to find talent, run science, and build partnerships, if you engage it as a peer rather than a vendor. For teams weighing where their next programs, capacity, or collaborators come from, the practical move is small and concrete: one project, one partner, run end to end, and judged on the results.

There is also a quieter point about what makes regional science travel. A program born in Montevideo or Buenos Aires still has to satisfy regulators and partners in the US and Europe, and that depends on evidence that is clean, consistent, and defensible wherever it goes. It is why Correa’s own lesson learned was to bring in specialists who run trials every day, sooner. The teams that treat trial execution and data as a first-class part of the plan, not an afterthought, are the ones whose work holds up when it crosses a border.

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Watch the Full Conversation

This article is based on Prelude’s Animal Health Insights webinar featuring Josefina Correa, co-founder and CEO of Xeptiva Therapeutics. Watch the full replay here.

Animal Health Insights is a webinar series hosted by Prelude CEO Tommy Jackson, bringing together experts from across the animal health R&D community to discuss the topics that matter most to clinical development teams. Subscribe to our newsletter to get notified about upcoming episodes.