Insilico Medicine

What Insilico Medicine does

Insilico Medicine develops drugs with generative AI. That means software that proposes new disease targets and new molecules instead of only screening existing ones. Founded in 2014, the company built a platform called Pharma.AI, according to its 2026 interim report. The report says the company uses it both for its own drug pipeline and in paid work with larger drugmakers. Drug discovery and pipeline development, which covers licensing deals and research collaborations, produced 97% of first-half 2026 revenue. Software subscriptions produced 2.5%.

Its shares have traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under stock code 3696 since December 30, 2025. The company lists offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, New York, Montreal, Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong. Founder Alex Zhavoronkov is one of its two chief executives. He told Reuters in July 2026 that frontier AI research is done in Montreal and Abu Dhabi. Experimental drug validation takes place in China, he said.

Why it matters

Insilico's lead drug is rentosertib. BioPharma Dive wrote in July 2026 that it is considered the pharmaceutical industry's leading AI-designed drug candidate. The company says AI identified both the target, a protein called TNIK, and the molecule itself. The drug is aimed at idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive lung-scarring disease. A Phase 2a trial published in Nature Medicine in June 2025 randomized 71 patients in China for 12 weeks. Safety was the primary endpoint. Those on the highest dose gained an average of 98.4 milliliters in forced vital capacity, a measure of lung function. The placebo group lost 20.3 milliliters. The authors said the results warranted larger and longer trials. Liver toxicity and diarrhea were the most common reasons patients stopped treatment.

Revenue for the first half of 2026 was US$106.3 million, up from US$27.5 million a year earlier. Net profit was US$35.5 million. The interim report attributes the increase mainly to upfront payments. It cautions that the company has no clear visibility on future revenue.

Recent developments

• December 2025: The Hong Kong initial public offering raised HK$2.277 billion, the company said.
• March 2026: Insilico announced a collaboration with Eli Lilly worth up to about $2.75 billion, including $115 million upfront. Fierce Biotech reported that it followed two earlier agreements between the companies, in 2023 and November 2025.
• July 2026: Insilico says it initiated a Phase III trial of rentosertib in China. Its interim report notes that the company placed its US investigational new drug application for the oral drug on inactive status, citing changes in research strategy.
• September 2026: The first patient was dosed on September 10 in the 52-week study. It is expected to enroll 320 participants at 47 centers in China.

What to watch

As of July 2026, none of Insilico's experimental medicines had been approved for sale, Reuters reported. The Phase III trial is larger and longer than the 12-week Phase 2a study. In the company's announcement, the trial's lead investigator estimated three to four years from the start of Phase III to regulatory approval under favorable conditions.

BioPharma Dive also reported that whether AI produces better drugs remains an open question. It added that an early-stage advantage for AI-discovered drugs may not hold up in later testing.

Headline deal values include payments that depend on future milestones. The company puts the aggregate contract value of its significant agreements since 2021 at about US$11 billion. Its interim report says such deals combine upfront payments with success-based milestones. Fortune reported in September 2026 that Zhavoronkov described his cohort of AI drug discovery startups as a graveyard.