MNCs Double Down on Chinese AI Drug Discovery with Two Blockbuster Deals

(Source: Xinkangjie)

Source: Xinkangjie

In the first week of 2026, the global AI pharmaceuticals industry witnessed two notable collaborations.

On one side isSanofi Partners with Helixon's Earendil Labs Once Again, pushing the total value of the strategic cooperation to $2.56 billion; on the other hand,Servier and InsilicoSigned an $888 million R&D cooperation agreement, focusing on challenging tumor targets.

International pharmaceutical giants are embracing emerging AI pharmaceutical forces represented by China with unprecedented enthusiasm and investment. These collaborations indicate that AI pharmaceuticals are transitioning from a concept to an industrial cornerstone. This heralds...The future industry competition will be a contest of systematic innovation capabilities that integrate data, algorithms, and profound biological insights.

What Surprises Will AI Drug Discovery Bring in 2026?

From Pipeline Purchases to Platform Investments

The evolution of Sanofi's collaboration with Earendil Labs clearly illustrates the strategic transformation trajectory of a multinational pharmaceutical company.

In April 2025, Sanofi paid $125 million as an upfront payment, with a total value of up to $1.845 billion, to acquire the global rights to two drugs, HXN-1002 and HXN-1003, from Helixon. Reportedly, these are bispecific antibody drugs targeting α4β7/TL1A and TL1A/IL23 for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and inflammatory bowel disease.

At the time, this was a typical licensed-in deal, where the giant paid to graft the fruits of external innovation onto its own product tree.

However, just nine months later, the nature of this new collaboration had quietly changed. According to the new agreement,This collaboration has been upgraded from a licensing agreement targeting specific drugs (HXN-1002 and HXN-1003) to a platform-level strategic partnership covering multiple autoimmune and inflammatory disease projects.

It is reported that Earendil will apply its AI discovery platform to discover and optimize novel bispecific antibodies for Sanofi. Sanofi will obtain the global exclusive rights for the development and commercialization of these candidate drugs and lead the subsequent clinical development and commercialization process.

The cooperation agreement specifies that Earendil will receive an upfront payment and near-term funds totaling $160 million, along with a total potential value of up to $2.56 billion, including upfront fees, development fees, and commercial milestone payments. Additionally, Earendil Labs will be entitled to tiered royalties ranging from low double-digit percentages based on net sales.

Sanofi's emphasis on the autoimmune and inflammatory diseases sector is not surprising. At the same time, the company is attempting to leverage AI tools to build long-term, systematic advantages in this highly competitive field. The two bispecific antibody drugs introduced through the first collaboration provide Sanofi with assets that carry relatively controllable risks and can quickly bolster its pipeline.After the platform's capabilities were initially validated, a larger-scale second collaboration naturally followed.

Insilico Medicine Signs Another International Collaboration

Insilico Medicine Announces Collaboration with Servier, Focusing on Oncology Based on Insilico's AI-Driven Drug Discovery Platform Pharma.AIChallenging Targets, identify and develop entirely new therapeutic drugs.

According to the terms of the agreement, Insilico Medicine will leverage its Pharma.AI platform to screen and advance potential drug candidates. Servier will share the R&D costs and, after successfully nominating promising candidates, lead subsequent clinical validation, regulatory communications, and the global commercialization process for the relevant oncology drug candidates.

Insilico Medicine is eligible to receive up to $32 million in upfront and near-term R&D milestone payments, with the total value of the collaboration reaching $888 million.

For both parties involved in the collaboration, such cooperation represents a more efficient and risk-distributing strategy.On the one hand, Servier acquires cutting-edge exploration capabilities at a controllable cost, transferring the high risks and uncertainties of the early exploration phase, while focusing on its strengths in clinical development and commercialization. On the other hand, for Insilico Medicine, the core value of this collaboration lies in platform validation and cash flow supplementation.

In addition to this collaboration with Servier, in recent years, Insilico Medicine has achieved dozens of AI-driven drug discovery collaborations and pipeline out-licensing. This includes pipeline out-licensing collaborations with Exelixis, Menarini, and others; as well as collaborations with Sanofi, Eli Lilly,Fosun PharmaReached joint R&D cooperation with globally renowned pharmaceutical companies; as well as target discovery collaborations with Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Pfizer.

It is not difficult to see that these collaborations are also a microcosm of the current shift in global biotechnology cooperation models. It also marks the value of China's top AI pharmaceutical companies, which is upgrading from providing algorithmic models to delivering verified, continuously productive, platform-level capabilities.

AI Brings Revolution in R&D

New drug development has been described in the industry as a high-risk game with "10 years, 1 billion investment, and a 10% success rate." In recent years, the infiltration of AI technology is shaking this logic.

Currently, AI凭借其Massive DataAnalytical capabilities have significantly optimized the early discovery process. Research shows that, as of the end of December 2023, globally, 24 molecules discovered by AI completed Phase I clinical trials, with 21 being successful, achieving a success rate of 87.5%, much higher than the average level of the traditional pharmaceutical industry.

The technological advancements in AI-driven drug discovery are not only reflected in the clinical success rates but also in the transformation of the traditional drug discovery process.

In June 2025, the Phase IIa clinical study results of Insilico Medicine's investigational drug Rentosertib (ISM001-055) were published in the academic journal *Nature Medicine*. The drug's target identification and molecular design were both driven by Pharma.AI.

Unlike traditional approaches, this AI-driven drug discovery process uncovers clues by analyzing and comparing vast amounts of data, then uses AI to help generate and design molecules. Additionally, the application of AI in drug development by MNCs such as Novartis is integrated into processes ranging from design and execution to reporting clinical trial results faster and more efficiently.

Despite the broad prospects, AI pharmaceuticals still face multiple challenges.The focus of the challenge is that no new drug discovered or designed by AI has successfully reached the market so far.This "finish line" is the goal that the AI pharmaceuticals industry is striving to achieve with all its might; success will further ignite a new wave of investment and application enthusiasm, while failure could lead to a prolonged period of confidence rebuilding within the industry.

These major collaborations in early 2026 reveal a clear trend: multinational pharmaceutical companies are deeply integrating the innovative capabilities of China's AI-driven drug discovery companies into their own R&D systems through large-scale, strategic partnerships.There is no denying that as AI evolves from an auxiliary tool to a research and development infrastructure, the companies that can most effectively integrate data, algorithms, and biological insights will define the future landscape of the pharmaceutical industry.

The reference materials are from publicly available online information, including news articles, corporate official websites, and government documents.