Insilico's AI drug rentosertib enters Phase 3 in China

Insilico Medicine's journey reflects the broader arc of AI drug discovery, a field that emerged around 2014 with promises to revolutionize how medicines are found. Many of those early startups have since failed, a fact Zhavoronkov acknowledged when he said his cohort is now a graveyard. Insilico survived by persisting through a molecule that its own team gave less than a 1% chance of succeeding, a drug that became rentosertib.

The company's decision to run its Phase 3 trial in China is not merely operational. China reformed its drug review process after 2015, growing its reviewer corps tenfold and cutting average review times from 900 days to 300 by 2019. Zhavoronkov's praise for Chinese regulators suggests that speed and regulatory familiarity are becoming competitive advantages for the country. Meanwhile, Chinese drugmakers' out-licensing deals with non-Chinese companies reached $136 billion last year, a record.

Zhavoronkov's strategy of licensing novel drugs cheaply to Chinese companies that can develop them faster and cheaper hints at a division of labor in the global drug industry. Whether this model produces approved medicines and profits, or simply shifts where experiments happen, will determine if Insilico's bet on China and AI becomes the template for the next generation of biotech.