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Newly Hong Kong-listed biotech firm Insilico Medicine is expected to receive up to US$888 million from a French drug maker under a partnership using Insilico’s proprietary artificial intelligence platform to discover and develop novel cancer drugs.
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.
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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.
The Hong Kong stock exchange recorded a surge in healthcare listings last year, supported by favourable policies and a wave of licensing tie-ups between mainland drug developers and global pharmaceutical giants.
Alex Zhavoronkov, founder, chairman and CEO of Insilico (left) takes part in the company’s listing ceremony in Hong Kong on December 30, 2025 with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Bonnie Chan. Photo: Sun Yeung alt=Alex Zhavoronkov, founder, chairman and CEO of Insilico (left) takes part in the company’s listing ceremony in Hong Kong on December 30, 2025 with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Bonnie Chan. Photo: Sun Yeung>
“This collaboration underscores Servier’s commitment to applying cutting-edge technologies to address unmet medical needs for the benefit of patients and reflects our confidence in Insilico’s internally developed and validated AI platform,” said Christophe Thurieau, executive director of research at Servier.
Alex Zhavoronkov, founder, chaiman and CEO of Insilico, said the “future of pharmaceutical superintelligence” was close, in which AI agents would “actually make decisions and design experiments, driving a virtuous cycle of faster, smarter and safer drug development”.
The company has expanded its AI-powered pharmaceutical partnerships in recent years. In the six months ended June 30, Insilico collaborated with 61 customers for drug discovery.
Major deals included a November partnership with US drug maker Eli Lilly valued at over US$100 million, including an upfront payment, milestone payments and tiered royalties on net sales upon commercialisation of any resulting drug products.
Insilico’s tie-up with China’s Fosun Pharma, which started in November 2021, has led to four discovery programmes to discover and identify small molecule chemical entities.
Similarly, its October 2022 collaboration with Sanofi employed the AI platform to advance drug candidates for up to six new targets. The firm received a total upfront payment of US$12.5 million from Sanofi.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2026 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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