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Julie Zhang

Biotech firm Insilico Medicine, backed by the Hong Kong Investment Corporation (HKIC), is building a “digital Einstein” to revolutionise how scientists discover new medicines, and plans to continue expanding its research base in China to stay ahead of global rivals after its Hong Kong listing on Tuesday.
“Biotechnology is a high-risk field like a ‘molecular casino’,” said founder Alex Zhavoronkov. “Even with artificial intelligence, you can lose 90 per cent of the time.”
The 11-year-old company was training and testing an AI-powered drug-discovery tool, Pharma.AI, to “enable faster, cheaper and more successful drug discovery with higher novelty and confidence”, he said. Zhavoronkov likened it to an “Einstein” capable of mastering fields from mathematics and physics to chemistry, biology and writing, pushing drug discovery to “new frontiers”.
He expected Insilico to begin opening some of its AI capabilities within the next three to five years, allowing other AI or pharmaceutical firms to speed up their own discoveries, likely through subscriptions costing about US$20 a month.
The company’s proprietary generative AI platform could read and interpret genomics and other biological data to create new drug molecule structures from scratch, instead of screening existing chemical libraries, according to Zhavoronkov.

Most of Insilico’s revenue comes from licensing drug candidates, with the remainder generated from selling AI software. It reported a net loss of US$19.22 million in the first six months of this year, compared with a net profit of US$8 million in the same period last year, according to its filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Founded in 2014 in the US, Insilico has a global presence in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, Canada and the Middle East. In September, the HKIC, an investment arm of the Hong Kong government, announced that in addition to its strategic investment, it would partner with Insilico to launch the Longevity Frontier Space initiative. Under the agreement, the HKIC said, the drug company would set up an AI-driven drug discovery incubator in Hong Kong with many “Hong Kong first” arrangements, including giving the HKIC the first look at incubated projects.
The company has developed 23 drug candidates using its platform, including two assets in Phase II trials – one for lung disease and the other for inflammatory bowel disease – though none have yet been commercialised.
Thanks to AI, these projects now took between 12 and 18 months to get to the preclinical stage, compared with “four and a half years in the traditional approach – while failing very, very often”, Zhavoronkov said. “The projects have achieved 100 per cent success to date going from development candidate to Phase I trials, and one of the records is nine months.”
That nine-month record was achieved in collaboration with China’s Fosun Pharma on the co-development of ISM8207, an immuno-oncology drug, under a deal that gave Insilico a US$7 million upfront payment in 2022 and up to US$48 million in milestone payments.
“The most efficient [biotech] companies in the world are in China,” said Zhavoronkov. “If you are not competing in China, you are not competing [globally] at all. If you are not in China, you are not relevant.”
He said China had the “fastest and highest quality drug-discovery infrastructure in the world”. Zhavoronkov cited Zhangjiang, known as an innovation hub in Shanghai, where “scientists can do chemical synthesis, enzymatic assays, cell-based assays, and animal experiments all in one place without the molecule ever leaving the site”. This “efficiency creates massive economic gains when it comes to AI‑powered drug discovery”, he added.

Insilico has partnered with “many” Chinese firms that use its AI tools to advance new drugs into clinical development, and plans to expand globally, including growing its drug research and development presence in China next year. Zhavoronkov did not disclose details about the scale of the partnerships or the scope of expansion.
“Our long-term vision is to be like McDonald’s for drug discovery – set up research sites around the world so that countries can convert money into drugs, and drugs into life,” he said. “We want to show that some countries can become drug discoverers for the first time. For example, we aim to discover the first drug ever developed in the Middle East.”
Insilico raised HK$2.28 billion (US$293 million) through its Hong Kong initial public offering this month. A total of 15 cornerstone investors committed US$115 million.
The investor line-up included US drug maker Eli Lilly, Chinese internet behemoth Tencent, alternative investment firm Oaktree, British asset manager Schroders, Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, UBS and mutual-fund manager China AMC.
The company plans to use about 48 per cent of the net proceeds to fund research and development for its clinical-stage pipeline drug candidates, about 15 per cent for developing new generative AI models, and the remainder for expanding its automated lab for early-stage drug discovery as well as general corporate purposes.


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China vital to Insilico’s plan to build biotech’s AI ‘Einstein’ for drug discovery

Insilico is training and testing an AI-powered drug-discovery tool to enable faster, cheaper and more successful drug discovery. Photo: Handout

Insilico’s AI platform can read and interpret genomics to create new drug molecule structures from scratch, instead of screening existing chemical libraries, says Alex Zhavoronkov. Photo: Handout

Most of Insilico’s revenue comes from licensing drug candidates. Photo: Handout

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US firm, backed by Fosun and Tencent, expands research base in China as it develops an AI-powered drug-discovery tool


US firm, backed by Fosun and Tencent, expands research base in China as it develops an AI-powered drug-discovery tool.


China vital to Insilico’s plan to build biotech’s AI ‘Einstein’ for drug discovery

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US firm, backed by Fosun and Tencent, expands research base in China as it develops an AI-powered drug-discovery tool

US firm, backed by Fosun and Tencent, expands research base in China as it develops an AI-powered drug-discovery tool