Helsinn Healthcare, InVirtuoLabs Sign AI-Driven Drug Discovery Collaboration

Helsinn Healthcare SA, the privately held Swiss pharmaceutical group, and In Virtuo Laboratories SA (InVirtuoLabs), a Lugano-based biotech startup specializing in AI-driven drug discovery, have entered a strategic collaboration to identify and optimize novel small-molecule therapeutics against an undisclosed biological target. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The deal, announced February 25, 2026, pairs Helsinn's proprietary compound library — which includes validated chemical hits with confirmed biological activity — with InVirtuoLabs' generative AI drug discovery platform, InVirtuoGEN. The collaboration is scoped to hit-to-lead progression, with the stated objective of producing optimized lead compounds with drug-like properties suitable for advancement into preclinical development. No specific indication or therapeutic target has been publicly identified by either party.

What Each Party Brings to the Table

Under the terms of the agreement, Helsinn will provide InVirtuoLabs with access to a structurally diverse set of proprietary compounds, including hits that have already demonstrated activity against the undisclosed target. InVirtuoLabs will deploy its InVirtuoGEN platform to design, evaluate, and prioritize novel molecular structures derived from those starting points, with the goal of generating multiple chemically distinct series for optimization.

The arrangement reflects a compound library AI platform model that has become increasingly common across the industry: a pharmaceutical company contributes validated biological data and chemical matter, while a computationally focused partner applies machine learning and molecular modeling to accelerate the design cycle. The logic is that generative models can explore chemical space far more broadly and rapidly than traditional medicinal chemistry iteration, proposing structures that retain desired target activity while improving pharmacokinetic, safety, and synthesizability profiles.

Helsinn, headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, is a third-generation family-owned company with direct commercial operations in the United States, manufacturing in Ireland, offices in China, and a partner network spanning 90 countries. The company's portfolio has historically centered on supportive care in oncology, with marketed products including the antiemetic franchise built around Akynzeo (netupitant/palonosetron) and Aloxi (palonosetron). Helsinn also has development-stage programs in oncology and dermato-oncology.

InVirtuoLabs was founded in Lugano in 2024 and closed a pre-seed funding round of €2.85 million in February 2025. The company's core asset is InVirtuoPlatform, described as a "Next Generation Virtual Lab" that integrates AI and molecular simulation tools for drug design. In October 2025, InVirtuoLabs released InVirtuoGEN, a generative chemistry model that the company said outperformed NVIDIA's benchmarks across all metrics proposed by the technology company for generative molecular design. InVirtuoGEN has since been integrated into InVirtuoPlatform and is being applied to internal discovery programs.

Financial Terms Remain Undisclosed

Neither party disclosed an upfront payment, milestone structure, total potential deal value, royalty rates, territorial rights allocation, or equity component. The absence of a headline financial figure distinguishes this announcement from the large-scale licensing transactions that typically dominate biopharma deal flow and suggests a relatively early-stage, research-focused arrangement. Helsinn is privately held and is not subject to public disclosure requirements; InVirtuoLabs, as a pre-seed startup, likewise has no reporting obligations.

The lack of disclosed terms also means it is not possible to assess whether the agreement includes option rights for Helsinn to license or acquire compounds emerging from the collaboration, or whether InVirtuoLabs retains any downstream economic participation through royalties or milestone payments tied to clinical or commercial success.

A Novel Therapeutics Discovery Model for a Mid-Sized Pharma

The deal is notable less for its scale than for what it signals about how mid-sized pharmaceutical companies are accessing computational drug design capabilities. Large pharma organizations — including Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Merck KGaA, and others — have established AI pharmaceutical partnerships or built internal machine learning teams over the past several years. For a company of Helsinn's size and private ownership structure, an external collaboration with a specialized AI firm represents a lower-capital path to the same capability set.

Gabriele Edoardo Braglia, Chief Business Officer and Deputy CEO of Helsinn, characterized the collaboration as "an important step in Helsinn's commitment to accelerating innovation through cutting-edge technologies." Gianvito Grasso, Founder and CEO of InVirtuoLabs, noted that "for a young startup like InVirtuoLabs, an R&D agreement with a pharma company is rather rare," adding that the company views the deal as an opportunity to demonstrate the capabilities of its generative chemistry platform in a real-world pharmaceutical program.

Generative AI Drug Discovery Enters the Mid-Market

The Helsinn Healthcare InVirtuoLabs collaboration is the latest in a growing series of partnerships in which pharmaceutical companies of varying sizes engage AI-native firms for discovery-stage work. What remains to be seen is whether the collaboration produces compounds that advance beyond lead optimization into preclinical and clinical development — a transition that has proven difficult for many AI-enabled discovery programs across the industry.

The undisclosed target and indication make it impossible to assess competitive positioning, standard-of-care context, or the clinical landscape the collaboration may eventually enter. Until either party discloses additional program details, the deal is best understood as a platform-level research agreement rather than a pipeline-level transaction.

Neither company disclosed a timeline for delivery of optimized lead compounds or for any decision point regarding advancement into preclinical studies.

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