Insilico plans to license programs before clinical trials and is choosing targets that are more familiar to pharma for some of them

Insilico plans to license programs before clinical trials and is choosing targets that are more familiar to pharma for some of them

On 11 August, Insilico founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov told BioSpace that the company plans to advance its programs to the preclinical candidate stage and license them to pharmaceutical partners before human trials. He linked this early licensing strategy to the decision to focus some programs on targets with “low to moderate novelty.”

Drug development begins with the selection of a biological target, such as a protein or another component in the body that the future molecule is intended to affect. Researchers then identify and test molecules. A preclinical candidate is a molecule that has reached the stage before testing in humans.

In the BioSpace interview, Zhavoronkov defined the boundary of this work: Insilico prepares a candidate and offers it to a pharmaceutical company before clinical development begins. Large pharmaceutical companies already have trial centers, relationships with clinical investigators, and experience working with regulators.

“If a startup, or anyone else, claims that AI allows it to run clinical trials better than pharma, that is complete nonsense. I used to say the same thing myself. I regret it.”

The early licensing model links target selection to the ability to secure a partner before the first human trial. Zhavoronkov said that highly novel targets had previously made it harder for Insilico to form partnerships. The company shifted some new programs toward targets with “low to moderate novelty.” According to Zhavoronkov, this change helped the company secure several major deals.

The June agreement between Insilico and SK Biopharmaceuticals illustrates this division of work: Insilico identifies targets and optimizes early candidates, while SK takes responsibility for later development and commercialization. Zhavoronkov describes early licensing as the boundary for new programs and links this choice to whether a partner is prepared to accept the risk associated with target novelty. Target selection therefore affects both the future molecule and the possibility of transferring the program to a pharmaceutical company before clinical trials begin.