Hong Kong-based clinical-stage biotechnology company Insilico Medicine has entered into a strategic research collaboration with French healthcare company Sanofi.
The collaboration is structured to leverage Insilico Medicine’s AI platform, dubbed Pharma.AI, to advance drug development candidates for up to six new targets.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will pay up to $21.5m to Insilico Medicine, upfront and target nomination fees.
Insilico’s Pharma.AI platform and a team of interdisciplinary drug discovery scientists will identify, synthesise, and advance lead therapeutic candidates up to the development stage.
The French drugmaker will also make additional payments, subject to achieving the research, development, and sales milestones, totalling up to $1.2bn.
The collaboration also establishes mid-single to up to low double-digit tiered royalties for any products developed.
Sanofi China research head Changchun Xiao said: “We look forward to working with Insilico Medicine, a demonstrated leader in AI-powered drug discovery.
“This collaboration will leverage our complementary capabilities, as well as the co-location of our scientific teams, to boost the drug discovery efforts of the Sanofi Institute for Biomedical Research (SIBR), Sanofi’s R&D centre in China.”
Insilico Medicine is an AI-driven drug discovery company that connects biology, chemistry and clinical trials analysis using next-generation AI systems.
The company has developed AI-powered deep generative models, reinforcement learning, transformers, and other machine learning techniques to discover novel targets and design novel molecular structures.
Its breakthrough solutions are used in the discovery and development of drugs for cancer, fibrosis, immunity, central nervous system (CNS) diseases and ageing-related diseases, said Insilico.
Insilico Medicine co-CEO and chief scientific officer Feng Ren said: “Leveraging Sanofi’s strong drug research and development expertise and Insilico’s powerful AI platform, we believe we can accelerate novel therapeutics discovery to address diseases with unmet medical needs.”
Insilico Medicine founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said: “We are very happy to collaborate with Sanofi, a company with a clear strategy in AI-powered drug discovery.
“This close collaboration will allow Sanofi to immediately gain the capabilities of one of the top AI start-ups in addition to enriching their drug discovery pipeline.”
