Eli Lilly expands $2.75B AI-enabled drug discovery deal with Insilico Medicine

Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine have announced an expansion in existing collaboration, aiming to boost 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 a $115 million upfront payment followed by regulatory, commercial, and development milestones. The company will also be eligible to receive tiered royalties on future sales.

On the other hand, Lilly will get access to Insilico’s AI engines and an exclusive worldwide license ​for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization ⁠of certain oral treatments which are currently in ​preclinical development.

According to Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine, “By deploying AI technologies that scale from biomarkers to life models, world models of human and animal ​life, we ​can identify ⁠multi-purpose targets driving multiple diseases at the same time.”

Using generative AI tools, Insilico has been successful in developing at least 28 drugs, with nearly half at clinical stage.

In December, the company went public in Hong Kong, leading to a surge in its shares more than 50 percent.

According to Andrew Adams, group vice president of Molecule Discovery at Lilly, the expanded partnership with Insilico will help us to explore novel mechanisms and speed up the identification of potentially promising therapeutic molecules across multiple disease areas.

Lilly and Insilico entered into partnership in 2023 with an AI-based software licensing agreement in 2023, later expanded into a research collaboration in November.