Fosun Pharma and Insilico Medicine Announce a Strategic, AI-driven Drug Discovery and Development Collaboration to Jointly Advance Multiple Targets

SHANGHAI and NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd ("Fosun Pharma"; Stock Code: 600196.SH, 02196.HK), a leading innovation-driven international healthcare group in China and Insilico Medicine ("Insilico"), an end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven drug discovery and development company, entered into a collaboration agreement to advance the discovery and development of drugs targeting a number of different targets globally through the use of AI technology.

This strategic collaboration includes an AI-driven drug discovery research and development (R&D) collaboration on four biological targets, as well as the co-development of Insilico's QPCTL program. Insilico will receive a total upfront payment of $13 million for the R&D collaboration projects and the co-development of the QPCTL program, potential milestone-based payments, and share commercialization profits from the QPCTL program. In addition, Fosun Pharma will make an equity investment in Insilico.

"We are pleased to enter into strategic collaboration with Insilico. Fosun Pharma is committed to promoting innovative R&D, and is oriented towards fulfilling unmet clinical needs and improving products' accessibility. We look forward to working with Insilico to leverage the technological and clinical development strengths of both companies, jointly improving the efficiency of innovative drug R&D, and benefiting more patients worldwide," said Yifang Wu, Chairman and CEO of Fosun Pharma.

The collaboration aims to combine Insilico's end-to-end AI-driven drug discovery platforms and Fosun Pharma's clinical development and commercial expertise to discover and develop a portfolio of novel therapeutics. Pursuant to the collaboration agreement, Insilico will take responsibility for delivering a preclinical candidate for the QPCTL program and advancing it to IND stage, after which, Fosun Pharma will then conduct human clinical studies and co-develop the candidate globally. In parallel, Fosun Pharma's R&D team will nominate four therapeutic targets to be assessed by Insilico's AI platform and R&D team, who are responsible of advancing drug candidates to IND stage. 

As part of the collaboration, Fosun Pharma will secure access to Insilico's PandaOmics and Chemistry42 platforms in order to advance Fosun Pharma's internal AI-powered discovery and development efforts. 

"In partnering with Fosun Pharma, a leading pharmaceutical company, we begin a new era of AI-powered end-to-end drug discovery and development as human-machine collaboration becoming the new normal in precision drug discovery and development. We previously demonstrated that AI can be used to discover novel targets and generate novel molecules that can be tested in humans in record time. Now, we are partnering with one of the leading scientific teams in the pharmaceutical industry to take this technology to the next level for the benefit of patients worldwide", said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine. 

About Fosun Pharma 
Founded in 1994, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("Fosun Pharma"; stock code: 600196.SH, 02196.HK) is a leading innovation-driven international healthcare group in China. Fosun Pharma strategically operates businesses in the pharmaceutical and health industry, including pharmaceutical manufacturing, medical devices and medical diagnosis, and healthcare services. Through equity participation in Sinopharm Co., Ltd., Fosun Pharma's business extends to pharmaceutical distribution and retail.

Fosun Pharma takes pharmaceutical manufacturing as its core business and sticks to innovative research and development. Through in-house R&D, co-development, in-licensing and incubation, Fosun Pharma had established platforms for small molecule innovative drugs, antibody drugs and cell therapy, focusing on major therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, "4 hypers" (hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia and hyperuricemia) and their complications, as well as central nervous system. In the meantime, Fosun Pharma keeps close track of cutting-edge technologies, such as targeted protein degradation, RNA, oncolytic virus and gene therapy to enhance its innovation ability.

Looking forward, under guidance of 4IN strategy (Innovation, Internationalization, Integration and Intelligentization), Fosun Pharma practices innovation and transformation, integrated operation and steady development, as well as the concept of sustainable development. Fosun Pharma is committed to becoming the first-class enterprise in the global mainstream healthcare industry.

For more information, please visit: www.fosunpharma.com.

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About Insilico Medicine 
Insilico Medicine, an end-to-end AI-driven drug discovery and development company, is connecting biology, chemistry, and clinical trials analysis using next-generation AI systems. Insilico Medicine has developed AI platforms that utilize deep generative models, reinforcement learning, transformers, and other modern machine learning techniques to discover novel targets and to design novel molecular structures with desired properties. Insilico Medicine is delivering breakthrough solutions to discover and develop innovative drugs for cancer, fibrosis, immunity, central nervous system (CNS) diseases and aging-related diseases. For more information, visit www.insilico.com.

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