By Elizabeth S. Eaton
On the back of mid-stage data for its lead candidate, Insilico Medicine raised US$110 million in a series E to progress its portfolio of AI-designed drugs, according to a LinkedIn post on Wednesday from CEO Alex Zhavoronkov. The round was led by Value Partners Group, which Zhavoronkov called one “of the largest publicly-traded asset management firms in Asia.”
Other existing investors, including Warburg Pincus, OrbiMed Advisors and Lilly Ventures, contributed to the round, which placed the private company’s valuation at more than US$1 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg. A January release from the government of Pudong — a district in Shanghai, China — said that Pudong Venture Capital, Puxing Synergy Fund and Xiyi Venture Capital also participated in the financing.
The fresh capital adds to a US$95-million series D total the biotech raised in 2022 across two tranches.
AI assets
According to Insilico’s website, it has 31 total programmes in development, with the most advanced being ISM001-055, a drug candidate for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
The company said in September that the small molecule targeting TNIK met the primary safety endpoint and key secondary efficacy endpoints in a Chinese Phase IIa study, and weeks later disclosed specific data from the trial.
Patients with IPF who received the high, 60-mg daily dose of ISM001-055 showed a mean 98.4 mL improvement from baseline in forced vital capacity (FVC) at 12 weeks, while the placebo group experienced a 62.3 mL decline. The treatment group also saw a 3.05 per cent improvement in percent predicted FVC from baseline, compared to a 1.84 per cent decline in the placebo arm.
“However, the Phase IIa readout is not the only reason for this round,” Zhavoronkov said in his post. “We have taken both the generative platforms and the reinforcement learning pipeline to a completely new level with over 700 different models. The funding will be used to progress the therapeutic pipeline and to advance and expand our end-to-end generative AI platform.”
In addition to ISM001-055, Insilico has nine other assets that have either begun clinical testing,or have received clearance from the FDA to do so. Three assets have been out-licensed to commercial partners, and a fourth is moving forward under a co-development deal with Fosun Pharma. The firm also has a discovery deal with Sanofi worth up to US$1.2 billion in biobucks.
The company’s pipeline is supported by its Generative Biologics technology to design de novo peptides, nanobodies and antibodies; the PandaOmics target discovery engine platform; and its AI small molecule generation platform, Chemistry42, among others.
