Sam Hopkins, Ph.D., is a 1980 alumnus of McDaniel with a bachelor’s degree in biology cum laude.
After graduation from McDaniel College, he entered graduate school as the recipient of an A.D.
Williams pre-Doctoral Fellowship and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the
Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia. He then received a Wellcome Foundation post-
Doctoral Fellowship and completed his post-doctoral training at the Wellcome Research Laboratories
in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
With 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Hopkins has held managerial,
scientific, and executive leadership positions at the Wellcome Research Laboratories, Trimeris Inc.,
Parion Sciences, Scynexis Inc., and Autoimmune Technologies. He is currently the Senior Vice
President of Therapeutics for Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc., a gene therapy platform company
dedicated to the discovery, development, and marketing of Adeno-Associated Virus vectors for the
treatment of patients with rare genetic disorders.
Throughout his career, Dr. Hopkins has participated in multiple aspects of anti-viral drug research
and development. Most notably, he was responsible for designing and implementing the non-clinical,
clinical, and regulatory strategies that led to the global approval of Fuzeon® (enfuvirtide) for the
treatment of HIV-1 infection, which was recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in
2003 as a major milestone in HIV-1 drug development.
A regular presenter at major national and international scientific conferences, he has co-authored
over 125 abstracts, patents and peer-reviewed journal articles, including his landmark 1998
publication in Nature Medicine, which has been referenced in the peer-reviewed scientific literature
over 1,300 times. It established the HIV-1 gp41 transmembrane protein as a valid target for antiviral
chemotherapeutic drug discovery and development.
Dr. Hopkins has participated in private, as well as public financings, and has raised more than $500
million for start-up companies from venture capital sources, National Institutes of Health grants and
contracts, private equity investments, corporate partnerships, and public equity markets. In 1997 he
successfully executed the initial public offering of Trimeris Inc taking the company public on the
NASDAQ and ultimately building the market capitalization of the company to over $4 billion
dollars. Most recently in 2021, he provided technical due diligence that led to the acquisition of his
current company, Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, by Bayer Pharma AG in a deal valued at $4 billion
dollars.
In 2010 Dr. Hopkins received the McDaniel College Trustee Alumni Award and in 2016 he received
the Professional Achievement Award. He has been a member of the McDaniel College Board of
Trustees since 2017 and serves on the executive committee. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina and
has three children. His oldest, Ray, is a 2020 graduate of McDaniel College, his son Will is a 2022
graduate cum laude of Gettysburg College, and his youngest daughter Claire is a sergeant in the
United States Army and serves as an expert combat medic stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
Cure Rare Disease, a non-profit organization (Tax ID number 82-2473513), is qualified as a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS and has been designated as a “public charity” under section 170.
