Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”,3696.HK), a clinical-stage generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery company, and SK Biopharmaceuticals, a South Korean company leading biotechnology innovation in the research, development and commercialization of breakthrough medicines around the world, announced a research and development partnership to discover innovative AI-powered drug candidates in the neuroimmune field of the central nervous system at the BIO 2026 international conference. (CNS).
Neuroimmune diseases, including neuroinflammatory diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and rare neurological diseases, remain among the most challenging therapeutic areas in modern medicine, with unmet patient needs and historically low clinical success rates.
Under the agreement, Insilico will leverage its proprietary Pharma.AI platform and preclinical drug discovery expertise spanning target validation, production chemistry, and molecular optimization to discover, design, and optimize novel candidates for neuroimmune indications. SK Biopharmaceutical contributes extensive development and clinical capabilities in neuroimmune diseases and will lead late-stage development and commercialization of all resulting programs. Together, the companies aim to accelerate discovery timelines and advance next-generation treatments for patients around the world.
Financially, Insilico is eligible to receive up to $18 million in upfront and short-term milestone payments. The total potential transaction value exceeds $2.5 billion, including development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, as well as single-digit royalties on net sales upon commercialization. Notably, this partnership sets a record for the total potential deal value that Insilico has ever secured with an APAC partner.
“This collaboration marks an important milestone in expanding our growth beyond epilepsy into new CNS treatment areas, building on the deep CNS expertise we have established through the successful development and commercialization of cenobamate,” said Donghoon Lee, President and CEO of SK Biopharmaceutical. “We believe that combining Insilico’s AI-powered drug discovery platform with SK Biopharmaceuticals’ clinical development and U.S. commercialization capabilities will accelerate the discovery of innovative CNS treatments for patients. We see this collaboration beyond a single program as a scalable and reproducible growth platform that can be leveraged for future target discovery and development opportunities.”
We are excited to announce this great news at the 2026 BIO International Convention. This underscores the tremendous power of industry communication and collaboration in accelerating advances in healthcare. SK Biopharmaceuticals is a visionary partner that combines global leadership and commercialization expertise with the adoption of advanced AI. By combining Insilico’s AI-driven target candidate engine with SK Biopharmaceuticals’ deep CNS knowledge, we aim to develop breakthrough therapies spanning both traditional small molecules and advanced new therapies to address important patient needs. ”
Dr. Alex Zaboronkov, Founder, Co-CEO, CBO, Insilico Medicine
As an AI-native biotechnology company, Insilico is redefining efficiency in preclinical drug development and setting new standards for the industry through its advanced AI and automation platform. While traditional early-stage drug discovery typically takes 2.5 to 4 years, Insilico synthesizes and tests just 60 to 200 molecules per program and consistently reaches preclinical candidate (PCC) candidates in an average of just 12 to 18 months. Since 2021, the company has appointed 31 PCCs, 13 of which have received IND approval or clearance.
Insilico continues to improve the performance of its AI platform while expanding the practical application of its technology in drug discovery and life sciences research. The company leveraged its extensive experience and datasets in training platforms to extract thousands of benchmarks and integrate them into MMAI Gym. Serving as both a “trainer and benchmark” for scientific AI, the MMAI Gym allows organizations to train models for domain-specific inference while rigorously evaluating their performance on real-world tasks, advancing the path to pharmaceutical superintelligence. To date, Human Longevity and Liquid AI have collaborated with Insilico and participated as partners in MMAI Gym.
