Insilico Medicine, a Hong Kong-listed company, has cut drug development timelines to about one year by combining AI with its China research ecosystem, according to its CEO, Alex Zhavoronkov.

China’s Growing Role in Global Drug Research

China’s growing role in global drug research, coupled with advances in AI, could further challenge established drugmakers, as the industry races to cut development costs and bring medicines to market faster. Insilico’s strategy highlights the potential of China’s research ecosystem to accelerate drug discovery.

Traditionally, it takes about 4.5 years to get to a drug developmental candidate using the traditional approach. However, Insilico has reduced this timeline to about 13 months, with a record of nine months to a developmental candidate, by leveraging AI and its China research ecosystem.

Focus on Markets Outside China

Insilico has partnered with major drugmakers, such as Eli Lilly and Japan’s Takeda, on research and development. The company has also announced a cooperation with Taiwan’s Bora Pharmaceuticals, potentially valued at over $2.5 billion. Despite its China presence, more than 90% of Insilico’s revenue comes from Western pharmaceutical companies.

Insilico conducts frontier AI research in Montreal and Abu Dhabi, while experimental drug validation and scaling take place in China. The company customizes and conducts post-training for foundational AI models using proprietary benchmarks tailored for drug discovery.

However, Zhavoronkov warned that wider AI adoption could disrupt workforce and resource deployment across the biotech industry, as companies automate more research and software functions. In his organization, he estimates that 40% of the workforce could be displaced on the software side, and laboratory bench scientists and software engineers are being retrained to manage AI benchmarks and robotics.

Original reporting: Appleton, WI News Feed (HLL/CB) — read the source article.