Big Pharma Doubles Down on AI Drug Discovery: Lilly, Merck Among Giants Pouring Billions into Strategic Partnerships

　　【Pharmaceutical Network Industry Dynamics】AI technology has become an important core driving force in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, many pharmaceutical companies are utilizing AI technology to reduce costs and accelerate the R&D process by building their own computing facilities and engaging in extensive collaborations.
 

On November 20, Valo announced a strategic partnership with Merck Germany to advance the discovery of treatments for Parkinson's disease and related conditions. The collaboration is valued at over $3 billion, including upfront payments, potential milestone payments, as well as royalties and research funding.
 

Public information shows that Valo is leveraging data and AI to develop a next-generation drug discovery platform, with a pipeline covering multiple therapeutic areas including cardiovascular/metabolic/renal diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders. Through this collaboration, Merck will utilize Valo’s AI-driven biology platform to identify and validate new disease targets, as well as employ Valo’s closed-loop discovery platform to rapidly generate preclinical compounds.
 

On November 10, Insilico Medicine and Eli Lilly entered into a strategic drug discovery collaboration. By leveraging the cutting-edge technological advantages of Insilico’s self-developed AI drug discovery platform, Pharma.AI, and combining Eli Lilly's extensive expertise in drug development and disease research, both parties aim to jointly accelerate the discovery and development of innovative therapies.
 

Notably, on October 28, Eli Lilly announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to build a pharmaceutical company-owned and operated "supercomputer." This will serve as the core infrastructure of an "AI factory," used for processing massive amounts of data, training experimental models, and generating inference results. The ultimate goal is to achieve breakthroughs in critical areas such as molecular discovery, significantly shortening the drug development cycle.
 

On October 6, AstraZeneca announced a $555 million collaboration agreement with US-based Algen Biotechnologies. According to the agreement, Algen will use its platform, named "AlgenBrain," to conduct early-stage drug discovery work for AstraZeneca. The goal of the collaboration is "to develop a series of next-generation immunology therapies through cutting-edge CRISPR gene regulation technology and AI-driven drug discovery approaches."
 

AstraZeneca has long been established in the "AI pharmaceuticals" field. In 2021, 50% of its small-molecule new drug pipeline was derived from AI research and development. The company has also developed two AI platforms internally: REINVENT, used for de novo design of small-molecule drugs, and AiZynthFinder, a retrosynthesis tool. In October 2025, the company once again collaborated with the Hungarian AI company Turbine, utilizing its "Simulated Cell" platform to optimize the ADC drug development process.
 

In October, Takeda Pharmaceutical signed an agreement worth over $1 billion with AI drug design company Nabla Bio. The former hopes to leverage Nabla's combined atomic model technology to simultaneously develop multi-target therapeutic drugs, further consolidating its advantages in core areas such as gastrointestinal diseases and neuroscience.
 

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From the current global trend of large pharmaceutical companies collectively accelerating and intensifying AI-driven drug discovery, AI has transformed into a strategic core at the enterprise level, aiding companies in building new competitive advantages in terms of efficiency and innovation. In the future, the ability to effectively integrate data, algorithms, and computing power is expected to directly impact the competitive gap and development prospects of enterprises in research and development.
 

　　Disclaimer: Under no circumstances shall the information or opinions expressed in this article constitute investment advice to any person.