Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine, can’t stop praising Eli Lilly. “Lilly is better at AI than Insilico, and no other company is better at AI than us…except for these companies,” he said.
He argued that just because the big drugmaker signed a new deal with Insilico worth $115 million upfront and about $2.75 billion for BioVac, which is contingent on meeting regulatory and commercial milestones, doesn’t mean he has good things to say about Lilly. He said he has been praising Lilly consistently for a year, after calling Tirzepatide, which Lilly takes, “the best drug ever invented by mankind.” “Munjaro is very happy every day. I want to develop the next one.”
Zaboronkov may have an opportunity to do just that—his AI drug discovery company’s new deal with Lilly, announced Sunday, includes rights for Mounjaro and the makers of Zepbound to develop, manufacture and commercialize some of the oral therapeutic candidates discovered by Insilico’s preclinical AI. He did not specify which assets Lilly had licensed, but said the company was “the absolute best partner” for candidates and “there is no better partner than them” in these disease areas. Insilico’s pipeline webpage was recently updated to state that a candidate targeting GLP-1 has been licensed out to an undisclosed partner.
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