Insilico Medicine, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, has announced a multi-year R&D collaboration with Servier, an independent international pharmaceutical company governed by a foundation. This strategic alliance is focused on identifying and developing novel therapeutics for challenging targets in the oncology space by leveraging Insilico’s proprietary AI platform, Pharma.AI.
Under the agreement, Insilico will be eligible to receive up to $32m in upfront and near-term R&D payments and will lead the AI-driven discovery and development of potential drug candidates that meet predefined criteria, while Servier will share the R&D expenses and lead clinical validation and commercialization processes.
“This collaboration underscores Servier’s commitment to applying cutting-edge technologies to address unmet medical needs for the benefit of patients and reflects our confidence in Insilico’s internally developed and validated AI platform,” said Christophe Thurieau, executive director research at Servier.
“I am excited to see the collaboration—it is yet another strong acknowledgment of our AI capabilities and R&D expertise,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, founder, CEO and CBO of Insilico Medicine.
“As we deepen the integration of generative AI into every stage of the pharma value chain, I believe the future of pharmaceutical superintelligence is never so close, where AI agents could actually make decisions and design experiments, driving a virtuous cycle of faster, smarter, and safer drug development.”
Insilico, which was recently listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has experience in AI-driven oncology drug discovery and development. The company has established an oncology pipeline that targets multiple cancer indications, leveraging both moderately novel and well-established mechanisms. Among its most promising assets, the potential best-in-class pan-TEAD inhibitor ISM6331 and the MAT2A inhibitor ISM3412 are both undergoing global, multicentre phase I clinical trials. Four other oncology programmes have been fully or partially out-licensed to partners, with phase I clinical trials actively in progress.
Harnessing AI and automation technologies, Insilico said it has improved the efficiency of preclinical drug development. While traditional early-stage drug discovery typically requires an average of 4.5 years, Insilico has nominated 20 preclinical candidates from 2021 to 2024, with an average timeline—from project initiation to preclinical candidate (PCC) nomination—of 12 to 18 months per programme, with 60 to 200 molecules synthesized and tested in each programme.
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