Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered biotechnology company, are collaborating on a drug discovery and development deal worth up to $2.75 billion.
Through this collaboration, Lilly will use Insilico’s Pharma.AI platform to support novel oral drug discovery and development efforts across multiple disease areas. Under the terms of the agreement, Lilly will have exclusive worldwide development and commercialization rights for candidates created under this agreement.
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Insilico will also provide Lilly with a hand in the development process, as the biotechnology will help advance multiple research and development programs related to Lilly’s chosen targets.
In exchange for access to Insilico’s services, Lilly will hand over $115 million upfront and commit to up to $2.63 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments related to produced preclinical candidates. Insilico is also eligible to receive tiered royalties on future sales.
Insilico said in a March 29 statement that the companies will primarily focus on diseases with high unmet need, but specific details of the collaboration were not disclosed.
This agreement deepens the relationship between Lilly and Insilico, as the two companies have previously signed several AI-focused agreements, including a research agreement valued at more than $100 million in November 2025. Lilly and Insilico first collaborated through an AI licensing agreement in 2023.
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Lilly’s deal with Insilico comes amid a flurry of deal activity by the Indiana-based drugmaker as it seeks to further capitalize on the pipeline from the burgeoning commercial success of its tirzepatide franchise.
Lilly has signed several AI-centered deals in recent months, with the company employing AI to shorten development timelines and discover new drugs. According to GlobalData’s Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center, Eli Lilly signed 16 AI-focused deals in 2025, including seven licensing deals totaling more than $2 billion. These include the more than $1 billion AI-driven RNA therapy agreement with Crayon Bio that the two men signed in April 2025.
GlobalData is the parent company. pharmaceutical technology.
Outside of AI, Eli Lilly has made several acquisitions so far in 2026, including inflammation specialist Ventyx Biosciences and in vivo Cell therapy developer Orna Therapeutics made the announcements in January and February 2026, respectively.
Now, the company is riding on the commercial wins of Zepbound and Mounjaro in the obesity and type 2 diabetes market, which have propelled the pharmaceutical giant into the $1 trillion market cap club that primarily includes technology companies such as Apple, Meta, and NVIDIA.
In the broader pharmaceutical space, several companies are also investing in AI to power next-generation pipeline development.
This includes British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, which in January 2026 agreed to acquire Massachusetts-based Modella AI to support drug development within its oncology pipeline.
