Insilico Medicine signs $200m AI drug discovery deal

Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine has agreed an artificial intelligence (AI) breast cancer drug discovery partnership worth a potential $200 million with a Chinese pharmaceutical company.

The partnership with Jiangsu Chia Tai Fenghai Pharmaceutical (CFTH) will use an AI-powered platform to uncover new drugs for triple negative breast cancer, a press release said.

Wenyu Xia, General Manager of CTFH, described Insilico as the “premier AI drug discovery company in the industry”.

Insilico will be eligible to receive up to $200 million in milestone payments and royalties based on net sales.

Wenyu said: “We believe that this collaboration will speed up the R&D process, reduce the cost and provide greater benefits to patients."

AI is playing an increasingly prominent role in new drug discovery, particularly for cancer therapies.

Last month, LSIPR  reported that Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis had signed a deal with BenevolentAI to use its AI platform to aid drug discovery.

In July, the European Commission pledged €35 million ($39.2 million) to use AI to promote the development of analysis of health images for cancer diagnostics.

According to Insilico, the latest collaboration is just one of more than 150 partnerships with industry and academic institutions worldwide.

Last year, the company established a research and development centre in Taiwan.

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