Epana Bio is a nine-person biotech developing targeted cell depletion therapeutics for autoimmune diseases. CEO Danny Wells faced one of the highest-stakes decisions in early-stage drug development: which indications to pursue first.

Indication selection usually comes down to a handful of familiar diseases assessed against the factors a small team’s bandwidth allows. You evaluate six indications and hope the right one was among them. The result is structural risk: missed signal, or walking into a crowded space.

Working in Sleuth, Epana ran a comprehensive indication evaluation at a depth no database could structure and no general AI could reliably source. 167 indications screened across clinical, competitive, and commercial fundamentals. 25 carried into program-specific evaluation tailored to Epana’s biology. 4 shortlisted for full diligence. 1 optimized basket.

The full case study walks through how Danny pressure-tested the analysis, built conviction, and extended the same foundation into competitive intelligence and JPM partnering prep.