Insilico Medicine announced a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement with Qilu Pharmaceutical to jointly develop small molecule inhibitors, focusing on specific targets for cardiometabolic disease management. Under the deal terms, Insilico will apply its proprietary Pharma.AI platform to focus on the design and optimization of novel small molecules for metabolic diseases, while Qilu will lead subsequent development and commercialization procedures.
The financial specifics of the agreement include an upfront payment to Insilico alongside development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, and double-digit royalties on any future net sales. Insilico states the total deal value is around USD 120 million. Notably, Qilu and Insilico first collaborated together in 2021, when Qilu began to use Insilico’s PandaOmics cloud-based, AI-driven software platform for therapeutic target discovery and biomarker identification.
The deal is the latest in a string of recent parternships for Insilico, which operates as a dominant force in AI-driven drug discovery while also developing its own innovative drug pipeline. The firm’s total out-licensing deals now exceed USD 2 billion in potential biobucks, with the Qilu partnership the third major announcement for Insilico in January 2026 alone. It follows an USD 888 million partnership with France’s Servier for oncology drug discovery, and a separate deal with Hygtia Therapeutics for ISM8969, a brain-penetrant NLRP3 inhibitor for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.