Insilico and Eli Lilly Announce a Major Collaboration

Building on two previous deals between the companies, this new agreement is potentially worth up to $2.75 billion and involves Lilly licensing assets from Insilico’s pipeline.

More than software

Earlier this week, the AI-driven drug discovery company Insilico Medicine announced a large-scale collaboration with the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. The deal is worth up to $2.75 billion, with $115 million upfront, plus milestones and tiered royalties, making it one of the largest deals of its kind in the longevity space. However, numbers are not the whole story. What makes this notable is the apparent shift from Lilly using Insilico’s tools to licensing its drug programs.

The core of Insilico’s business is its software suite for drug discovery automation, the Pharma.AI platform, which the company touts as the most comprehensive out there, covering the entire process starting with target identification. Insilico, founded by Alex Zhavoronkov in 2014, claims that it collaborates with 13 of the top 20 largest global pharma companies by 2024 sales and that Pharma.AI can speed up drug discovery times significantly. For instance, the company says that its IPF program, now known as rentosertib, which it describes as the first wholly AI-discovered and AI-designed small-molecule drug, went from project start to preclinical candidate in about 18 months and to Phase 1 in under 30 months.

The relationship between Insilico and Lilly started in 2023 with a software licensing deal and was followed by a larger 2025 research collaboration. In parallel, Insilico has been developing its own drug pipeline, where it either advances programs itself or partners them out. Apparently, part of the current deal is for Lilly to buy into assets from Insilico’s pipeline, which would be a stronger form of validation and a marker of growing trust between the two companies.

“The agreement grants Lilly an exclusive worldwide license for the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of potentially best-in-class, novel oral therapeutics in preclinical development for certain indications,” the press release says. “In addition, Insilico and Lilly will collaborate on multiple R&D programs focused on targets selected by Lilly, by combining Insilico’s state-of-the-art Pharma.AI platforms with Lilly’s development capabilities and deep disease-area expertise.”

The companies have not publicly disclosed the exact number of licensed assets, the targets, or the disease areas. Some reporting has suggested that a GLP-1-related asset may be part of the deal, but that has not been confirmed publicly.

Experts weigh in

“The Insilico–Eli Lilly deal marks a turning point for AI in drug discovery,” said Garri Zmudze, co-founder of LongeVC, an early investor in Insilico. “Having followed Alex Zhavoronkov for years, his level of commitment and work ethic has been exceptional, and this milestone feels well deserved. This is a landmark moment for AI in biotech, because it proves that AI-driven platforms can consistently translate science into commercial partnerships. Alex’s relentless dedication over many years has played a key role in making this possible.”

Alexey Strygin, longevity entrepreneur and early Insilico team member, shares the same enthusiasm: “This collaboration validates what those of us who were there early have always believed – that AI-driven drug discovery would eventually earn the trust of the world’s largest pharma companies. Deals like this grow Insilico’s war chest and valuation, and Alex is already allocating those resources toward the aging cause, both internally (the company is hiring longevity researchers) and as an angel investor in bold new ventures (including biostasis).”

Karl Pfleger, longevity investor and creator of AgingBiotech.info, has a more nuanced view on whether Insilico is a “true” longevity company: “Insilico is unique among the many AI-driven-drug-discovery (AIDD) companies in having a nontrivial focus on aging and being led by someone clearly passionate about aging. On the one hand, there’s much more money in AI & AIDD than in aging, so considering any AIDD companies to be part of the aging field can skew the numbers, because even Insilico’s pipeline is largely cancer and non-aging related. On the other hand, Insilico really is special, as evidenced again recently by its saving of the ARDD conference. Other aging biotechs have been increasingly making big-pharma deals, including with Lilly, but this new deal is by far the largest in the aging sector if we consider it to be in that sector. It takes the total value of announced deals with aging biotechs from at least $8.5 billion to over $11 billion based on the data in AgingBiotech.info/companies.”

We asked Alex Zhavoronkov a few questions in a flash interview:

What changed between Lilly’s earlier work with Insilico and this larger licensing deal?

Our relationship with Eli Lilly has evolved from tools to collaboration to assets. We began with an AI software licensing agreement in 2023, expanded into a research collaboration in 2025, and now this latest deal reflects a shift to licensing actual drug candidates. This progression demonstrates growing confidence not just in the platform, but in the output of the platform.

Should we see this as validation not just of your AI platform, but of actual drug assets?

Yes – this is validation of both. This agreement gives Lilly exclusive rights to develop and commercialize specific AI-discovered drug candidates, not just access to the technology. That represents a meaningful shift, as large pharma is now betting on AI-generated assets entering the pipeline.

Your release refers to a portfolio of oral therapeutics; can you give details?

While we cannot disclose specific molecules, the deal includes preclinical-stage oral therapeutics across selected disease areas. These were discovered using our end-to-end AI platform and are designed to address high-value, high-unmet-need indications, with Lilly leading downstream development and commercialization.

There’s speculation about metabolic or GLP-1-related assets; can you comment?

We do not comment on specific assets, but public reporting suggests a GLP-1–related program may be part of the broader portfolio licensed. More broadly, we are active across metabolic disease, and our platform is well suited to identifying targets relevant to multiple diseases simultaneously.

More broadly, where do you think AI-driven drug discovery stands today – what is working, what is still overhyped, and what should we realistically expect in the next few years?

We are transitioning from AI hype to real-world execution. AI can now generate viable targets and molecules and move them into pipelines, significantly compressing early discovery timelines. However, fully autonomous drug development remains overhyped. In thecoming years, we expect more AI-designed drugs entering clinical trials and more partnerships shifting toward asset-level deals.