Insilico adds Sanofi to partnership roster with $888m deal

Fresh from its IPO at the end of last year, Insilico Medicine has added to its stable of partners after signing a new alliance with Servier that could be worth up to $888 million.

The new collaboration, which includes an upfront fee of $32 million, will focus on the use of Insilico's AI-driven Pharma.AI drug discovery platform to find new therapies for cancer.

The US and Hong Kong-based company's chief executive, Alex Zhavoronkov, said the deal is "another strong acknowledgement of our AI capabilities and R&D expertise," adding to earlier partnerships with Lilly, Exelixis, Sanofi, Fosun Pharma, Hisun Pharma, and Menarini that collectively are worth billions of dollars.

"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," added Zhavoronkov.

Another sign of that acceleration came at the end of last week, when Insilico and Hisun revealed they had nominated a preclinical candidate for development just eight months after signing their collaboration.

While traditional early-stage drug discovery typically requires 2.5 to four years, Insilico has said that more than 20 of its internal programmes initiated between 2021 and 2024 achieved preclinical candidate nomination in an average of 12 to 18 months, and only needed roughly 60 to 200 molecules to be synthesised and tested to reach that milestone.

Traditional drug discovery can require hundreds or even thousands of compounds go through this process before a preclinical candidate is selected.

Details of the new alliance with Servier remain thin for now, but Insilico will lead the AI-driven discovery and initial development of potential drug candidates, while Sanofi will share R&D expenses and take the lead on clinical development and any future commercial activities.

Founded in 2014, Insilico finally pushed an IPO over the line last month, completing a much-oversubscribed listing on the Hong Kong exchange that raised around $293 million and was backed by a long list of investors that included US pharma group Eli Lilly and Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Servier, meanwhile, has been building its presence in oncology in the last few years through deals such as the $1.8 billion takeover of Agios' oncology business in 2021, which added IDH1/2 inhibitor Voranigo (vorasidenib), approved to treat brain cancer.

Last year, the French pharma also signed licensing deals with Ideaya Biosciences on darovasertib for uveal melanoma and Black Diamond Therapeutics covering a small-molecule RAS/RAF-targeting drug for solid tumours.