{"id":1984,"date":"2026-06-22T21:13:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2026-06-22T21:13:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T21:13:32","slug":"insilico-medicine-sk-biopharmaceuticals-strike-2-5b-ai-drug-discovery-deal-targeting-neuroimmune-therapies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1984","title":{"rendered":"Insilico Medicine, SK Biopharmaceuticals strike $2.5B AI drug discovery deal targeting neuroimmune therapies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Inscilico will use its Pharma.AI platform to help design new candidates for neuroimmune treatments, while SK Biopharmaceuticals will then steer the late-stage development and commercialization of discovered treatments. While Insilico is expected to get $18 million in payments in the near-term, the deal could bring in up to $2.5 billion if the firm reaches certain development and commercial milestones, in addition to royalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The agreement marks Insilico\u2019s largest tie\u2011up to date with an Asia\u2011Pacific partner; it\u2019s also the second deal of this size that Insilico has agreed to with Big Pharma. In late March, Insilico signed a deal valued at $2.75 billion with U.S. drug giant Eli Lilly to target the \u201cbest-in-class, novel oral therapeutics in preclinical development.\u201d (Andrew Adams, Eli Lilly\u2019s group vice president of molecular discovery, also serves as the chair of Insilico\u2019s new \u201cLongevity Board\u201d).<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to be the SpaceX of the pharmaceutical industry,\u201d Alex Zhavoronkov, co-CEO of Insilico Medicine told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThe more I scale, the better my AI gets. I want to get to this escape velocity where nobody can even compete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Insilico Medicine\u2019s shares rose 5.6% in Hong Kong trading on Monday, surging after the deal was announced at midday local time. The firm\u2019s shares have risen by 35% since its IPO in late December. SK Biopharmaceuticals\u2019s shares dropped 1.7% on Monday, building on a 30% decline for the year thus far.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy combining Insilico\u2019s AI-powered drug discovery platform with SK Biopharmaceuticals\u2019 clinical development and U.S. commercialization capabilities, we believe we can accelerate the discovery of innovative CNS [central nervous systems] therapies for patients,\u201d Donghoon Lee, president and CEO of SK Biopharmaceuticals, said in a statement. \u201cWe see this collaboration as a scalable and repeatable growth platform that can be leveraged for future target discovery and development opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

SK Biopharmaceuticals is part of Korea\u2019s SK Group. The chaebol <\/em>has risen in prominence over the past year due to its ownership of SK Hynix, one of the world\u2019s most important producers of memory chips and a major supplier to Nvidia. On Monday, SK Hynix became South Korea\u2019s most valuable company, overtaking longtime No. 1 company Samsung Electronics.<\/p>\n

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\u201cKorea now has substantial resources driven by the boom in AI. Now that innovation is flowing into pharmaceuticals.\u201d Zhavoronkov says. \u201cMore Korean companies will try to play a bigger role in pharmaceutical research and development, clinical trials, manufacturing and sales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKorean companies are a bit more adventurous,\u201d Zhavaronkov adds. \u201cThey\u2019re willing to take a little bit more risk to get ultra-high novelty,\u201d particularly in neuroimmunology, which he projects could become a \u201ctrillion dollar opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Insilico\u2019s model is to use AI to more rapidly discover and develop new drug candidates, screening vast numbers of molecules before moving to clinical trials. The company, which was founded in Boston, Mass. and maintains offices in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, has multiple drugs in trials, including one targeting idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a condition where scar tissue forms in the lungs, that\u2019s currently in the Phase II stage.<\/p>\n

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Insilico is also riding a broader boom in Asian, and particularly Chinese, biotech. China now accounts for roughly a third of the innovative molecules in global drug pipelines and attracts about three\u2011quarters of Asia\u2019s biotech venture funding, according to a report from ING released last week.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you use China as a platform, you\u2019re going to gain two years of speed at the pre-clinical level,\u201d Zhavoronkov explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe want to be the SpaceX of the pharmaceutical industry,\u201d Alex Zhavoronkov, co-CEO of Insilico Medicine tells Fortune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pharmaceutical-industry"],"yoast_head":"\nInsilico Medicine, SK Biopharmaceuticals strike $2.5B AI drug discovery deal targeting neuroimmune therapies - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1984\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Insilico Medicine, SK Biopharmaceuticals strike $2.5B AI drug discovery deal targeting neuroimmune therapies - 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