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Exclusive interview with Ren Feng: Behind the $1.2 billion major cooperation, why is Insilico favored by Sanofi?

 Last Update: 2023-01-06
 Source: Internet
 Author: User

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Arterial New Medicine learned for the first time that on November 8, Insilico, a clinical-stage drug discovery company driven by artificial intelligence (AI), announced a multi-year drug development collaboration
with Sanofi that will last for many years and target multiple targets.

The agreement includes upfront payments and target discovery fees totaling up to $21.
5 million, additional R&D and commercial milestone payments with a total potential value of up to $1.
2 billion
.
The partnership will also provide phased royalties
ranging from medium to low double digits for the commercialization of successfully developed products.
Under the terms of the agreement, the collaboration will leverage Insilico's AI-driven Pharma.
AI drug discovery platform to advance drug candidate development based on six innovative targets
.

The agreement includes upfront payments and target discovery fees totaling up to $21.
5 million, additional R&D and commercial milestone payments with a total potential value of up to $1.
2 billion
.

From the R&D cooperation with Fosun Pharma in January this year with a down payment of tens of millions of US dollars, to the heavy cooperation with multinational pharmaceutical companies with high down payment in November, this is not only an important step on the "road to self-certification" of Insilico, but also an important milestone
for domestic AI pharmaceutical companies to be recognized by large pharmaceutical companies and enter the international stage.

Among the competitors of many top AI pharmaceutical companies, why can Insilico stand out as a partner of Sanofi? What stage has the "road to self-certification" in the domestic AI+ pharmaceutical industry reached? To this end, Arterial New Medicine interviewed Dr.
Ren Feng, co-chief officer and chief scientific officer of Insilico for the first time.

Among the many international competitors, why did Sanofi choose to cooperate with Insilico?

Arterial New Medicine: Is this blockbuster cooperation going well? How long have the two sides been communicating? From what dimensions was the discussion carried out?

Ren Feng: It was not easy to establish this cooperation, the whole process was jointly promoted by the BD team and the R&D team of both sides, and it took about eight or nine months from informal contact to now
.
Large multinational pharmaceutical companies need to spend a lot of time researching their partners before establishing cooperation
.
The same goes for Sanofi, who not only learned a lot about our platform, but also spent a lot of time researching our team, collaborations, and past successes
.

Ren Feng:

Arterial Medicine: What questions did Sanofi ask when screening partners?

Ren Feng: The communication between the two sides involves very specific issues, and we are not comfortable disclosing
this information.
In the initial communication, the two sides exchanged aspects that Insilico's AI platform could solve, but what impressed us more was that Sanofi also focused on the aspects
that we could not solve.
We used to find it a very challenging or detrimental issue, but in the end, we found that the aspects that positive feedback could not solve were more reflective of focus and expertise
.

Ren Feng: What impressed us even more was that Sanofi also focused on the areas
that we couldn't solve.

Arterial New Medicine: What characteristics of AI pharmaceutical companies are valued by multinational pharmaceutical companies in communication? Why does Insilico's technology platform stand out?

Ren Feng: We feel that there are several advantages
.
First of all, our artificial intelligence platform is presented in a software-based form, which allows our partners to operate and try it
freely.
There are many questions in the industry about whether the molecules of AI pharmaceuticals are predicted by AI or by people, and if they can actually experience and try, it is the best response
to doubts.

Ren Feng:

Secondly, while many AI platforms only focus on chemical molecule generation capabilities, Insilico's AI platform extends back and forth, covering early target discovery and later clinical trial protocol result prediction
.
From the perspective of early drug development, not only can molecules be generated for existing targets, but new targets can also be explored and
evaluated.

In addition, I personally believe that multinational pharmaceutical companies also pay great attention to the team's background, past success cases, and ability to lead projects in communication, and will be evaluated from a very comprehensive dimension, not limited to a single standard and dimension
.

What stage has the "road to self-certification" in the domestic AI+ pharmaceutical industry reached?

Arterial New Medicine: What is the significance of this cooperation with Sanofi for the development of Insilico? What is the focus of Insilico's next steps?

Ren Feng: Insilico has been working hard to gain industry recognition
.
We are divided into three steps, the first step is to verify the effectiveness of our own artificial intelligence technology platform; The second step is to efficiently produce excellent R&D pipelines that can be advanced to the clinical stage under the empowerment of the artificial intelligence platform; The third step is to further obtain industry recognition through cooperation with large pharmaceutical companies, and at the same time demonstrate the powerful enabling role
of artificial intelligence pharmaceuticals.

Ren Feng:

At the beginning of this year, we signed a R&D cooperation with Fosun Pharma with a down payment of 10 million yuan, and in less than a year, we completed R&D cooperation with multinational pharmaceutical companies with a potential value of US$1.
2 billion, which we consider to be important milestones
on the road to self-certification.
In the next step, we look forward to seeing the projects made by the artificial intelligence platform also go overseas, and we are now seeking opportunities to transfer some of the more mature projects to international pharmaceutical companies
.

Arterial New Medicine: There are still relatively few AI pharmaceutical companies in China that have been recognized by multinational pharmaceutical companies and reached heavy cooperation such as Insilico, what do you think is the reason for the limited international influence of domestic AI pharmaceutical companies? How to expand international influence?

Ren Feng: At present, Chinese AI pharmaceuticals with some influence in the world are mainly established earlier, such as Insilico, XtalPi, Bingzhoushi, etc
.
Internationally well-known companies such as Exscientia, Recursion, BenevolentAI, Relay, and Atomwise were basically founded in 2012-2015 between
years.
Relatively speaking, many domestic AI pharmaceutical companies started relatively late, and the establishment time was about 2018-2020, and there is not enough time to expand international influence
.
On the one hand, to improve the influence is to actively publicize existing projects and cooperation, for example, many of our AI pharmaceutical research and development progress has been promoted internationally, on the other hand, to further expand some international cooperation, including drug research and development cooperation and scientific research cooperation with universities
.

Ren Feng:

Arterial New Medicine: What do you think this blockbuster cooperation means to other AI pharmaceutical companies in China?

Ren Feng: We hope this is big Deal can add some confidence to domestic AI pharmaceutical companies, and Insilico can prove itself step by step, until the current cooperation with multinational pharmaceutical companies, which means that other domestic AI pharmaceutical companies can also be recognized and even go overseas
through similar paths.
If domestic AI pharmaceutical companies can give full play to their technical advantages, as long as they have characteristics and advantages at a certain point, they are expected to sign in better cooperation projects
.

Ren Feng: If domestic AI pharmaceutical companies can give full play to their technical advantages, as long as they have characteristics and advantages at a certain point, they are expected to sign up for better cooperation projects
.

Arterial New Medicine: What stage do you think the domestic AI pharmaceutical industry has reached?

Ren Feng: We think domestic AI The pharmaceutical industry is in a fast-catching up phase
.
Although there are many listed companies abroad in the field of AI pharmaceutical, there are currently no domestic ones, and there are 70 foreign AI pharmaceutical clinical pipelines There are many, but only one project of Insilico Intelligence has entered the clinic
.
But in the process of competing with many foreign companies, we can also feel that there are not many lagging behind, next year or the year after that, some of our domestic ones AI pharmaceutical companies will have many projects to catch up
.

Ren Feng:

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