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Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine, a clinical-stage generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, has announced a research collaboration with Eli Lilly that the two parties will combine Insilico’s state-of-the-art Pharma.AI platforms with Lilly’s development and disease expertise to jointly discover and advance innovative therapies.
Insilico will utilise its validated Pharma.AI platform and deep drug discovery expertise to generate, design, and optimize candidate compounds against targets defined under the agreement. Insilico is eligible to receive over $100 million including an upfront, milestone payments, and tiered royalties on net sales upon commercialization of any resulting drug products.
The collaboration represents a further deepening of the partnership between the two companies, which originated with the AI-based software licensing agreement in 2023.
Harnessing state-of-the-art AI and automation technologies, Insilico has significantly improved the efficiency of preclinical drug development. While traditional early-stage drug discovery typically requires 3 to 6 years, from 2021 to 2024 Insilico nominated 20 preclinical candidates, achieving an average turnaround - from project initiation to preclinical candidate (PCC) nomination - of just 12 to 18 months per program, with only 60 to 200 molecules synthesized and tested in each programme.
