March 29 (Reuters) – U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly will sign a $2 billion deal with Hong Kong-listed biotech Insilico Medicine, which uses artificial intelligence for drug discovery, to develop products and market a diabetes drug, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Lilly will acquire exclusive rights to sell a GLP-1 drug for diabetes from Insilico Medicine, the FT report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The deal is expected to be announced later on Sunday and includes a $115 million upfront payment and could total more than $2 billion if future regulatory and sales milestones are hit, the newspaper added citing unnamed sources.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to AI to accelerate R&D, betting on new modelling tools and automated labs to unlock efficiency gains across their pipeline, and in line with a push by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to reduce animal testing in the near future.
(Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Mark Potter and Susan Fenton)
