Insilico Medicine Raises $60 Million in Series D Financing to Advance Pipeline and Launch AI-powered Drug Discovery Robotics Laboratory
- Written by Media Outreach
“The application of artificial intelligence and machine learning for drug discovery has incredible potential to transform the way new therapies are developed,” said Min Fang, Managing Director, Head of China Healthcare at Warburg Pincus. “For Insilico, 2022 was a year of incredible growth and progress. They have demonstrated the value of combining deep scientific expertise with cutting-edge technology capabilities to significantly accelerate drug discovery. We’re delighted to continue to partner with the Insilico team and support a company that is at the forefront of this innovation.” Since the previous round of financing, Insilico has developed a growing portfolio in frontier areas empowered by its proprietary AI platform. Seven programs in its internal pipeline have progressed to the IND-enabling stage, including a novel 3CL protease inhibitor for COVID-19 treatment, and two synthetic lethality programs targeting MAT2A and USP1 for oncology. It also successfully completed a Phase 0 microdose study and entered a Phase I clinical trial with its first internally developed program targeting fibrosis. “With the power of cutting-edge AI platforms developed fully in house and validated by many global pharmaceutical companies and our innovative, highly parallel, fully distributed drug discovery model, we nominated seven preclinical candidates since I joined the company in 2021,” said Feng Ren, PhD, Insilico’s Chief Scientific Officer and Head of Global Research and Development. “I have 15 years of experience working in large pharmaceutical companies and CROs and I am impressed by the speed and quality of our discovery programs. We plan to continue expanding the breadth of the pipeline and enhance our AI and robotics capabilities globally. Our rapidly growing team is composed of talented and experienced scientists in drug discovery with diverse backgrounds and relentless passion for novelty and innovation, and fully committed to developing novel drugs with a sense of urgency for the waiting patients.” Insilico has also expanded its collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry through co-development and software licensing deals with a number of major pharmaceutical companies. Since the launch of its PandaOmics™ and Chemistry42™ in late 2020, nine out of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies have licensed Insilico’s AI platforms. In 2022, Insilico signed a multi-asset partnership deal with Fosun Pharma and EQRX in January, and a drug discovery co-development deal with EQRx in March. Notably, Insilico achieved its first major milestone and nominated a preclinical candidate for the QPCTL program for cancer immunotherapy in less than 40 days into the strategic collaboration with Fosun Pharma.