Eli Lilly Acquires Global Exclusive Rights to Insilico Medicine's AI-Discovered GLP-1 Drug for $2.75B

Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine have reached a cooperation agreement worth up to $2.75 billion, acquiring global exclusive rights to develop, produce, and commercialize the latter's AI-discovered GLP-1 oral diabetes drug. Insilico will receive an upfront payment of $115 million, plus milestone payments and sales royalties.

Lilly's GLP-1 drug Mounjaro was the second-highest-selling drug globally in 2025 but faces competition from Novo Nordisk's oral weight loss drug. The company is investing heavily in AI R&D, having built an NVIDIA-powered supercomputer and planning a $1 billion new lab in San Francisco.

Founded in 2014 at Johns Hopkins University, Insilico Medicine is one of the early companies applying generative AI to drug discovery, having developed 28 drugs (nearly half in clinical stages). It listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last December, with licensing deals as its core revenue source.