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

Insilico Medicine, the parent company of Skolkovo resident Insilico, 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."