SAAM II™ — Rapid. Design. Models.
Full modeling power in a fraction of the time. Prototype PK-PD/QSP/PBPK models before committing to expensive pipelines, or assess dosimetry across hundreds of compartments. SAAM's solid, alway has been.
Featured publications
Selected · Peer-reviewed
Notable work in SAAM II
QSP · Immunology · Metabolism · DosimetryLipoprotein kinetics
Human lipoprotein tracer studies — apoB from VLDL through IDL to LDL — are designed and fitted as compartmental models in SAAM II.
Barrett PHR, Chan DC, Watts GF. J Lipid Res. 2006.
Read paper →Vaccine QSP
Vicini’s immunogenicity model became the basis of the QSP platform later used to study COVID-19 vaccine dosing.
Chen X, Hickling TP, Vicini P. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2014.
Glucose–insulin simulator
The glucose–insulin model of the UVA/Padova Type 1 diabetes simulator was designed in SAAM II. In 2008 the FDA accepted the simulator in place of animal trials for closed-loop insulin research.
Dalla Man C, Rizza RA, Cobelli C. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2007.
Read paper →Reference biokinetics
SAAM II is used to build reference biokinetic models for internal dose. Giussani and colleagues built the systemic tellurium model in SAAM II, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) adopted it for internal dosimetry.
Giussani A et al. Int J Radiat Biol. 2014.
Read paper →Resources
Tutorials · Library · CommunityTutorials
Step-by-step PDF guides for compartmental modeling, advanced features, and numerical workflows.
- Compartmental modeling
- Advanced compartmental
- Modern examples (files + paper)
- Numerical methods
- PopKinetics tutorial paper
PopKinetics
Two-stage population-PK add-on for SAAM II, free with your license.
Community & external
Societies, workshops, and third-party resources where SAAM II is taught and used.
History
NIH origins · 1950s–today
- 1950sNIH origins
- 1993SAAM II released
- 2008FDA-accepted simulator
- 2022Nanomath
Show full timeline ↓Hide timeline ↑
1950s
SAAM origins at NIH
Dr. Mones Berman at the NIH Mathematical Research Branch develops compartmental modeling for radiation dosimetry, creating the Simulation, Analysis and Modeling (SAAM) language — a flexible "modeling dictionary" for translating sketched compartmental diagrams into systems of differential equations.
Late 1970s
CONSAM
Conversational SAAM (CONSAM) led by Prof. Roy Boston launches with a command-line interface, enabling interactive modeling on graphical terminals like the Tektronix 4010 and 4025 — replacing the punch-card workflow.
1982–1988
RFKA at the University of Washington, Seattle
UW's NIH-supported Resource Facility for Kinetic Analysis (RFKA) becomes an international hub for biomedical, metabolic, and pharmacological modeling, sponsoring workshops and hosting visiting researchers worldwide. SAAM II was conceived here, with key input from compartmental modelers such as JA Jacquez (Michigan), C Cobelli (Padova), and J DiStefano (UCLA).
1993
SAAM II released
A complete redesign — drag-and-drop GUI, modern numerical and statistical algorithms — ships first on Sun workstations, with the PC version following shortly after.
1995–2005
SAAM Institute era, Seattle
The SAAM Institute becomes a worldwide reference in PK and modeling, hosting workshops and visiting scientists who shaped modern PK and PD. The Institute also released PopKinetics, a two-stage population-analysis add-on. The center was led by D Foster and P Vicini (UW).
2008
FDA milestone — Padova–UVA simulator
The Padova–UVA Type 1 diabetes simulator, designed in SAAM II, is accepted by the FDA in lieu of animal trials — a landmark recognition of in-silico testing for closed-loop insulin delivery research.
2012–2022
The Epsilon Group / Abbott
The Epsilon Group (later acquired by Abbott, Charlottesville, VA) licenses the commercial rights to maintain and distribute SAAM II.
2022–now
Nanomath stewardship
SAAM II transfers to Nanomath LLC (Spokane and Seattle) — the current developer and distributor under the leadership of Simone Perazzolo. Latest release: SAAM II 2.5 (2026).
Next
Working on the next versions
New capabilities are in development — stay tuned for what’s next in SAAM II.
Specs
Engine · Estimation · WorkflowsReferences
Citations- [1] Perazzolo S. SAAM II: A general mathematical modeling rapid prototyping environment. CPT Pharmacometrics Syst Pharmacol. 2024. ↩
- [2] Charles BG, Duffull SB. Pharmacokinetic software for the health sciences. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2001. ↩
- [3] Vasić V et al. A PBPK model for PRRT with [177Lu]Lu-DOTA-TATE: Comparison of model implementations in SAAM II and MATLAB/SimBiology. Phys Med. 2024. ↩
- [4] Barrett PHR et al. SAAM II: Simulation, analysis, and modeling software for tracer and pharmacokinetic studies. Metabolism. 1998. ↩
- [5] Heatherington A et al. A pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic comparison of SAAM II and PC/WinNonlin modeling software. J Pharm Sci. 2001. ↩