AI Drug Discovery Firm Insilico Medicine Secures Third Major Pharma Partnership with Astellas Following Deals with Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim

36Kr has learned that AI-driven drug discovery company InSilico Medicine and Astellas Pharma have announced a collaboration to jointly develop candidate drugs for Astellas’ new drug R&D pipeline. Astellas is the second-largest pharmaceutical company in Japan and ranks 17th globally, engaging in the research, development, manufacturing, and sales of pharmaceuticals worldwide, with a focus on five therapeutic areas: urology, transplant immunology/infectious diseases, diabetes complications/metabolic disorders, neuroscience, and oncology.

The specific collaboration involves both parties leveraging InSilico Medicine’s novel generative artificial intelligence system to accelerate the development of drug candidates targeting traditionally challenging target families.

Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, InSilico Medicine will receive upfront payments and milestone payments,Intellectual property rights generated through shared collaboration. The specific amount has not been disclosed.

Notably, this marks the second major pharmaceutical partnership disclosed by AI-driven drug discovery company InSilico Medicine this month. On April 15, the company announced a research and development collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim, a top-20 global pharmaceutical company, leveraging InSilico Medicine’s generative machine learning technologies and its proprietary Pandomics platform to identify potential therapeutic targets for multiple diseases and to validate real-world evidence.

Another significant partnership was established earlier this year, when Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, collaborated with InSilico Medicine to leverage the latter’s artificial intelligence development platform. This collaboration aims to help Pfizer identify therapeutic targets and biomarkers within its drug development programs, potentially delivering breakthrough therapies for patients.

Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Astellas: These three pharmaceutical partnerships were intensively finalized within a four-month period. This is a noteworthy phenomenon for industry players, indicating that leading companies have entered a harvest phase, with the number of pharmaceutical collaborations beginning to rise.

This is because, in the field of AI-driven drug discovery, substantial financing alone does not instill sufficient confidence in the industry. What companies and investors are more eager to see is validation of the platform’s AI capabilities, which can be demonstrated either through commercial adoption by pharmaceutical companies or through positive clinical outcomes.

The industry has entered a phase of competition among top-tier players. In 2019, six financing rounds were publicly disclosed in this sector, with the following large-scale funding rounds warranting attention: AI-driven drug R&D company focused on gut microbiome therapeuticsUnknown BiomeThe company completed two consecutive rounds of financing in 2019; InSilico Medicine, mentioned in this article, closed a $37 million Series B round last year. Furthermore, 36Kr has learned of some undisclosed developments: several leading Chinese companies also secured new funding last year to advance their R&D pipelines, though the news has not yet been made public.