If this becomes a successful treatment, does Rutgers profit from it (and if so, how)?
Most small companies and university groups who develop drugs will bring them to an early to maybe mid-stage point in the development process and then sell the molecule (and maybe the whole company) to a big pharma company, reaping the profits. These entities typically don't have the expertise and resources to support large scale clinical trials, intensive process development (to make the active ingredient and the final formulated tablet/capsule/injectable/etc.) and development of manufacturing supply chains. Below is some info that might roughly translate to what the RU drug and other drugs might fetch on the market.
The graphic below shows the valuation (what they might be bought for) for drugs at various stages of development. Keep in mind this is 1997 data, so you'd need to factor in inflation into the valuation prices, but the take home message is that start-ups/universities can fetch modest prices for early stage (preclinical/phase 1 compounds), decent prices for phase 2 molecules and much larger prices as drugs move towards filing/approval by FDA. So if RU sold the drug now, maybe they'd get $50-$100MM, whereas if they wait for phase I results, they might get $200MM and could get much more if they sold after phase II, but they'd also need to invest millions to conduct the larger scale trials and do the other development work.
http://www.nature.com/bioent/2003/030101/full/nbt0602supp-BE36.html
For those unaware, here's a quick overview of clinical development: phase 1 is trials in small numbers (10-20 or so) healthy volunteers simply to assess ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) and phamarcokinetics (is the target receptor being affected?), phase 2 involves clinical trials in patients with some disease/condition to be treated and is looking at both safety and efficacy in modest numbers of patients (maybe 50-100), and phase 3 is the large mega-clinical trials usually conducted in thousands of patients with the target condition to truly determine with high statistical accuracy whether a new drug is safe and effective. These are usually comparing the drug vs. either placebo or vs. a standard of care drug, if one is available and they're usually double-blinded (neither the patient nor the doctor knows who's getting what). Phase 3 data are almost always needed to file for and obtain approval from the FDA and/or health authorities in other countries (there are exceptions in areas like oncology).
As an example, my company (Merck) just bought Afferent for $500MM, mostly for their phase 2 drug in development for chronic cough; this price can also balloon much higher (to over $1 billion), if the drug passes future milestones towards approval. See the link for more. My guess is Rutgers would either sell this very soon or after phase I, at the latest.
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13603293/1/merck-to-bulk-up-with-afferent.html
