Insilico Medicine has entered a multi-year research and development (R&D) collaboration with Servier, worth up to $888m, to develop and discover new oncology therapies.

The partnership combines Insilico’s AI drug discovery platforms with Servier’s expertise in cancer drug development, aiming to address challenging targets in the oncology field.

Under the agreement, Insilico will receive up to $32m in upfront and near-term research payments.

The company will lead the use of its AI technologies to discover and progress potential drug candidates that meet defined scientific and development criteria.

Servier will share R&D costs, and, once promising molecules are identified, will lead clinical validation, regulatory processes, and global commercialisation of the resulting oncology candidates.

Insilico has developed an oncology pipeline targeting several cancer indications using both new and established mechanisms.

By employing advanced AI and automation technologies, the company has reduced early-stage drug discovery timelines.

From 2021 to 2024, it nominated 20 preclinical candidates with an average time from project start to preclinical candidate of 12 to 18 months per programme, synthesising and testing only 60 to 200 molecules in each programme.

Insilico Medicine founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said: “I am excited to see the collaboration—it is yet another strong acknowledgement of our AI capabilities and R&D expertise.

“As we deepen the integration of generative AI into every stage of the pharma value chain, I believe the future of pharmaceutical superintelligence is never so close, where AI agents could actually make decisions and design experiments, driving a virtuous cycle of faster, smarter, and safer drug development.”