Eli Lilly and Co (NYSE:LLY) has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Insilico Medicine, a clinical-stage biotechnology firm focused on generative artificial intelligence, to advance the development of new therapeutics across multiple disease areas, it was announced over the weekend.
Under the agreement, Lilly will obtain an exclusive worldwide license to develop, manufacture and commercialize certain potentially best-in-class oral drug candidates that are currently in preclinical development. The partnership will also include joint research and development efforts on multiple programs targeting diseases selected by Lilly.
The collaboration will combine Insilico’s AI-driven Pharma.AI platforms with Lilly’s drug development capabilities and disease-area expertise, with the aim of accelerating the discovery and advancement of novel treatments.
Financial terms of the deal include an upfront payment of $115 million to Insilico. The company is also eligible to receive additional payments tied to development, regulatory and commercial milestones, which could bring the total value of the agreement to approximately $2.75 billion. Insilico would also receive tiered royalties on any future product sales resulting from the collaboration.
The companies said the partnership is designed to leverage artificial intelligence and pharmaceutical development capabilities to improve the efficiency of early-stage drug discovery and bring new therapies to market more quickly.
"From its inception, Insilico Medicine has been developing deep learning for end-to-end drug discovery. By deploying frontier AI technologies that scale from biomarkers to life models, world models of human and animal life, we can identify multi-purpose targets driving multiple diseases at the same time," Insilico Medicine CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said in a statement.
"Working with Lilly, we aim to deliver transformative therapies that treat diseases with high unmet need. This collaboration is a testament to the power of AI in tackling the most complex challenges in human health."
Shares of Eli Lilly traded up 0.8% at about $885 in early trade on Monday.