Insilico and SK Bio forge $2.5bn AI neuroimmunity alliance

In the first piece of news from the BIO International Convention that gets underway in San Diego today, Insilico Medicine has teamed up with SK Biopharmaceuticals on a wide-ranging partnership to use AI to find neuroimmune drug candidates for central nervous system diseases.

The back-ended deal – which includes an $18 million upfront payment to Massachusetts, US, and Hong Kong-based Insilico from its South Korean partner, along with approximately $2.5 billion in milestone payments – focuses on "neuroinflammatory, neurodegenerative, and rare neurological disorders."

The specific targets or diseases that will be covered in the collaboration have not been disclosed. Still, the overall thrust of the deal is well aligned with SK Bio's focus on CNS disorders with drugs like Xcopri (cenobamate) for epilepsy and narcolepsy treatment Sunosi (solriamfetol), and an R&D pipeline focused on neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson's, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"This collaboration represents an important milestone in expanding our growth beyond epilepsy into new CNS therapeutic areas," said Donghoon Lee, president and chief executive of SK Bio. "Beyond a single program, we see this collaboration as a scalable and repeatable growth platform that can be leveraged for future target discovery and development opportunities."

SK Bio becomes the latest drug developer to sign up to deploy Insilico's Pharma.AI platform, and is the largest alliance with an Asian pharma group. The top-line value is also Insilico's second-largest publicly announced partnership after Eli Lilly's $2.75 billion program – which included an upfront payment of $115 million – ahead of other deals involving Sanofi and Servier.

The string of deals backs up Insilico's claim that Pharma.AI is an ever more attractive platform for partners, becoming more speedy and efficient and able to identify and nominate preclinical candidates within 12 to 18 months, compared to the two-and-a-half to four years needed with conventional drug discovery methods, with only 60 to 200 molecules needing to be synthesised and tested per program.

"We are delighted to announce this great news at the 2026 BIO International Convention, which underscores the tremendous power of industry communication and collaboration in accelerating progress in healthcare," said Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, Insilico's founder, co-chief executive, and chief business officer.

"By uniting Insilico's AI-driven target-to-candidate engine with SK Biopharmaceuticals' deep CNS mastery, we aim to unlock breakthrough therapies, spanning both traditional small molecules and advanced new modalities, to address critical patient needs," he added.