Eli Lilly expands Insilico pact with $2.75B AI drug discovery deal

Eli Lilly is expanding its partnership with AI drug developer Insilico Medicine through a deal worth up to $2.75 billion, granting the pharmaceutical company worldwide rights to develop and market a suite of preclinical oral therapies.

Under the agreement, Lilly will pay Insilico $115 million upfront for access to its Pharma.AI platforms to support oral drug discovery. The pharma giant could also pay up to $2.6 billion in milestone payments and tiered royalties on any future drug sales stemming from the collaboration.

The new pact brings together Insilico's AI-powered drug discovery capabilities and Lilly's deep disease-area expertise in clinical development, the companies said in a joint release.

"This collaboration allows us to explore novel mechanisms and accelerate the identification of promising therapeutic candidates across multiple disease areas," Andrew Adams, Lilly's group vice president of molecule discovery, added.

Insilico stated that the collaboration will primarily focus on developing therapies for diseases with "high unmet need."

The company has built a diverse therapeutic pipeline using its Pharma.AI platform, comprising more than 40 programs, including 24 experimental candidates spanning oncology, metabolic and inflammatory diseases and others still in discovery.

The agreement builds on a 2023 collaboration that gave Lilly access to Insilico's Pharma.AI software suite and adds to their $100 million AI drug discovery deal announced last November.

Lilly has been reinvesting the profits from its top-selling tirzepatide franchise, branded as Mounjaro and Zepbound, into a bold AI-focused dealmaking strategy, quickly establishing itself as a top leader in AI-driven drug development.

The pharma giant inked more than 10 AI deals last year, including several licensing agreements worth more than $2 billion.

Earlier this year, Lilly also teamed up with AI giant Nvidia to invest $1 billion in a new AI research lab aimed at speeding up drug discovery using Nvidia's BioNeMo platform and its next-gen Vera Rubin architecture.

Other big drugmakers, including Pfizer and Roche, have also invested heavily in AI over the years to speed up drug development, but Lilly has invested the most.

Alivia Kaylor is a scientist and the senior site editor of Pharma Life Sciences.