Insilico Medicine, a clinical-stage biotechnology company powered by generative AI, and Qilu Pharmaceutical Group, a leading integrated modern pharmaceutical company in China, and its subsidiary Shanghai Qilu Pharmaceutical Research Center, today announced a strategic partnership for innovative drug development. This will leverage Insilico’s proprietary Pharma.AI platform to co-develop small molecule inhibitors focused on specific targets for cardiometabolic disease management.
According to the agreement, Insilico Medicine will focus on the design and optimization of novel small molecules for the treatment of metabolic diseases using its proprietary Pharma.AI platform, and Qilu Pharmaceutical Group will be responsible for subsequent development and commercialization steps. The total contract value, which includes development and commercialization milestone payments and single-digit royalties based on net sales, is $120 million.
Dr. Weikang Tao, Member of the Board of Directors, Group Vice President and Head of Global R&D of Qilu Pharmaceutical Group, said, “As a leading Chinese pharmaceutical company, Qilu has always attached great importance to the rapid advancement of AI technology, especially the application and potential of AI in pharmaceutical R&D. Insilico is an AI company with advanced AI technology and application capabilities. This collaboration marks the deepening of our partnership, which has evolved from our initial software.” We look forward to the smooth progress of this innovative drug discovery and development project through the synergy of Qilu’s extensive R&D experience and capabilities and Insilico’s advanced AI platform and expertise, thereby addressing unmet medical needs and bringing new hope to patients around the world. ”
Dr. Alex Zaboronkov, Founder, CEO and Chief Executive Officer of Insilico Medicine We are pleased to further deepen our strategic collaboration with Pharmaceutical.Recently, Insilico Medicine presented its unique cardiometabolic portfolio at the BIO-Europe conference.This portfolio includes 8 products from blockbuster to IND realization stage. “Cardiometabolic diseases have the potential to create the first drugs to achieve large-scale extension of healthy lifespan, and we look forward to AI technology accelerating innovation in this field and maximizing its potential.”
Insilico Medicine continues to validate its diversified business model based on drug discovery and development, software solution licensing, and innovative expansion beyond drug development, securing software licensing agreements with 13 of the world’s top 20 multinational pharmaceutical companies and establishing tens of millions of dollars of upfront research collaborations with Fosun Pharmaceuticals and Sanofi. The company also entered into pipeline license-out agreements with Exelixis and Menarini Group, with total transaction value exceeding $2 billion. Notably, Qilu Pharmaceutical first began using PandaOmics in 2021, leading to a collaboration now valued at nearly $120 million, which will further deepen the powerful role of the artificial intelligence platform and drive innovative treatment development with even greater efficiency.
In 2016, Insilico first described the concept of using generative AI to design novel molecules in a peer-reviewed journal, which laid the foundation for the commercially available Pharma.AI platform. Since then, Insilico continues to integrate technological breakthroughs into the Pharma.AI platform. The Pharma.AI platform is now a generative AI-powered solution spanning biology, chemistry, drug development, and scientific research. Powered by Pharma.AI, Insilico has nominated 22 Developmental/Preclinical Candidates (DC/PCC) within a comprehensive portfolio of over 30 assets since 2021, with its most advanced candidate, RentSearchiv, achieving positive results in a Phase IIa clinical trial and the first proof of concept for AI-driven drug development at the clinical stage.
