Insilico Medicine Signs Strategic Research Collaboration with Sanofi worth up to $1.2 Billion

Photo 1: Albert Wong, CEO of HKSTP, delivered welcoming remarks at Insilico Medicine’s media briefing today, congratulating its ground-breaking milestone with Sanofi.

From left to right:

• Alex Zhavoronkov, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Insilico Medicine 
• Dr Grace Lau, Head of Institute for Translational Research, HKSTP
• Frank Pun, Ph.D., Head of HK Office of Insilico Medicine 
• Albert Wong, CEO, HKSTP 
• Aldous Mak, Chief Financial Officer, HKSTP 
• Andy Wong, Head of Innovation and Technology, InvestHK

(Hong Kong, 9 November 2022) – Insilico Medicine, a clinical stage artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, announced a multi-year, multi-target strategic research collaboration with Sanofi. Under the terms of the agreement, the collaboration will leverage Insilico Medicine’s AI platform, Pharma.AI, to advance drug development candidates for up to six new targets. 

“We look forward to working with Insilico Medicine, a demonstrated leader in AI-powered drug discovery,” said Changchun Xiao, Head of China Research at Sanofi. “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 center in China.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will pay Insilico Medicine a total of up to $21.5 million covering the upfront and target nomination fees to benefit from Insilico’s end-to-end Pharma.AI platform and gain access to a team of interdisciplinary drug discovery scientists to identify, synthesize, and advance high-quality lead therapeutic compounds up to development candidate stage. Additional payments will be made if key research, development, and sales milestones are met, and could total up to $1.2 billion. The collaboration also establishes mid-single to up to low double-digit tiered royalties for any products developed.

“We are very happy to collaborate with Sanofi, a company with a clear strategy in AI-powered drug discovery,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, CEO and founder of Insilico Medicine. “This close collaboration will allow Sanofi to immediately gain the capabilities of one of the top AI startups in addition to enriching their drug discovery pipeline."

“We are thrilled to collaborate with Sanofi. 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,” said Feng Ren, PhD, co-CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Insilico Medicine. “Together we will use cutting-edge AI technologies to make significant breakthroughs in drug R&D.”

“It is exciting to see Insilico Medicine’s rapid growth since its establishment of R&D headquarters at Science Park in 2019. Insilico has beaten all expectations and this latest breakthrough partnership with one of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies in Sanofi will take Insilico to another level of biotech innovation and leadership,” said Albert Wong, CEO of HKSTP. “For HKSTP and for the city, this is inspiring and helps realise our vision to see Hong Kong emerge as a leading biomedical technology hub to propel world-class innovation and success.”

Insilico Medicine is headquartered at the Hong Kong Science Park, which is home to a number of leading AI and biotechnology companies and R&D centres.