Insilico signs US$888 million AI drug-development deal days after Hong Kong IPO



The deal comes just days after the US company’s shares debuted following its initial public offering (IPO), which raised HK$2.28 billion (US$293 million) after the public portion was oversubscribed 1,427 times.

The multi-year partnership with Servier, unveiled on Saturday, would make Insilico eligible for up to US$32 million in upfront and near-term research and development payments, the companies said, with the rest of the payments contingent on milestones.

Insilico would leverage its Pharma.AI platform to identify and advance potential drug candidates that “meet predefined scientific and development criteria”, while Servier would share the R&D expenses and lead clinical validation and commercialisation efforts, they said.

The deal marks the latest validation of Insilico’s AI-driven drug discovery capabilities, which the company claims can slash drug-development timelines to 12 to 18 months from the average of 4.5 years using traditional methods.

The company’s generative AI platform reads and interprets genomics and other biological data to create new drug molecules from scratch instead of screening existing chemical libraries.

Insilico’s Hong Kong shares lost 0.7 per cent to HK$37.30 as of noon on Monday.

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