Year: 2018-19

Company: Samumed

Liaison(s): Bill Butler, Hutch Humphreys

Samumed is a San Diego-based pharmaceutical company and a leader in medical research and development for tissue-level regeneration. As a platform-based company, Samumed has numerous drugs in the pipeline and is engaging across a multitude of therapeutic areas. With their platform’s origins in small molecule-based Wnt pathway modulation, they develop therapeutics to address a range of degenerative diseases, regenerative medicine, and oncology.

This Team Master’s Project was primarily focused on Samumed’s investigational drug, SM04690, which is currently being developed for the treatment of pain associated with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Given a set of starting assumptions, the team assessed the risks and potential associated with expanded therapeutic indications for the drug. The assessments were three-fold: the team evaluated clinical and regulatory pathways to craft a Clinical Development Plan, estimated the target patient population to assess market potential, and developed a financial model to determine the expected return on investment and risk adjusted net present value for each option.

By considering clinical and regulatory pathways, reimbursement potentials, competition, and anticipated expenses and revenues, this Team Master’s Project created a recommendation for maximizing Samumed’s potential for the expanded development of SM04690.