Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine have announced an expansion of their existing collaboration, aiming to drive AI-powered drug discovery.
The new deal worth up to $2.75 billion will focus on financial assistance, regulatory and commercial cooperation.
Under the recent agreement, Insilico will receive an upfront payment of $115 million, followed by regulatory, commercial and development milestones. The company is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on future sales.
On the other hand, Lilly will gain access to Insilico’s AI engines and an exclusive global license to develop, manufacture and commercialize certain oral treatments currently in preclinical development.
According to Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, “By deploying AI technologies ranging from biomarkers to life models, world models of human and animal life, we can identify multifunctional targets that cause multiple diseases simultaneously.”
Using generative AI tools, Insilico has managed to develop at least 28 drugs, almost half of which are in the clinical phase.
In December, the company went public in Hong Kong, leading to a more than 50 percent increase in its shares.
According to Andrew Adams, group vice president of Molecule Discovery at Lilly, the expanded collaboration with Insilico will help us explore new mechanisms and accelerate the identification of potentially promising therapeutic molecules in multiple disease areas.
Lilly and Insilico partnered in an AI-based software licensing agreement in 2023, which later expanded into a research collaboration in November.
