Insilico Medicine has entered a strategic collaboration agreement with Suzhou Ribo Life Science. Building upon the automation, intelligence and scalability capabilities of Insilico's LifeStar 2 laboratory, the two parties will further deepen the existing experimental service cooperation, combining the end-to-end R&D capabilities of Insilico's proprietary Pharma.AI platform with Ribo's profound expertise in oligonucleotide therapeutics development, aiming for comprehensive efficiency boost in the oligonucleotide drug R&D cycle.

Li-Ming Gan, Co-CEO and Global R&D President, Ribo, said, "We are now in a new era of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-guided clinical research and development. Insilico Medicine and Ribo are highly aligned in terms of innovation capabilities, as well as missions and visions in our respective fields, and we are very pleased to see our previous successful collaboration grow into this comprehensive strategic cooperation. Through years of technological advancements and existing AI tools, Ribo has entered a track of rapid development with intensive output of drug candidates and efficient advancement of clinical trials. Now empowered by Insilico Medicine's globally leading AI solution, we anticipate an even more powerful catalyst for our differentiated strategic development stage. We look forward to sparking innovation through close cooperation between both parties, further enhancing the efficiency and certainty of our drug development, and accelerating AI-driven oligonucleotide therapies to benefit all of humanity."

Ribo (06938.HK) is a global pioneer in the development of oligonucleotide-based therapeutics. It has established a vertically integrated R&D platform with a comprehensive suite of technologies that support the entire lifecycle of oligonucleotide therapeutics, and a diversified pipeline portfolio covering multiple major and chronic disease areas including cardiovascular, metabolic, renal, and liver diseases. Ribo's proprietary RiboGalSTAR liver-targeting technology platform has advanced seven products to clinical stages, with efficacy and safety well validated in clinical trials. Meanwhile, its RiboPepSTAR technology platform has made significant progress in extra hepatic areas such as kidney, cardiac, metabolism, and adipose tissue. Through partnerships valued over USD 6 billion with multiple MNCs, Ribo has its R&D platform and scientific capabilities highly recognised by the international market.

Feng Ren, PhD, Co-CEO and CSO, Insilico Medicine, said, "We are very pleased to sign this strategic cooperation agreement with Ribo today. Insilico and Ribo have maintained close communication and mutual trust. Also, it is worth noting that Ribo is the first partner on high-throughput experimental services of our LifeStar 2 automated laboratory platform, demonstrating the industrial empowerment of our automated laboratory platform. With the continuous innovation of AI algorithms, Insilico Medicine's Pharma.AI platform has recently introduced multiple major upgrades. Through in-depth discussions, both parties have reached consensus on cooperation opportunities, where we can leverage the Pharma.AI platform to empower multiple scenarios in oligonucleotide drug development. We will work together to enable end-to-end empowerment, further expand the boundaries of AI empowerment, and strive to meet unmet clinical needs."

In the field of oligonucleotide therapeutics development, AI is already playing a considerable role in processes including target screening and identification, and data modeling and simulation. Through evaluation of target clinical effects in large patient databases, AI supports prediction of clinical efficacy and safety, improving the efficiency and certainty of clinical research. The cooperation will combine Insilico's AI system covering the entire drug development process with Ribo's 3-dimensionally integrated oligonucleotide therapeutics development platform to enhance efficiency at various research stages and accelerate the R&D process of innovative oligonucleotide therapeutics.

Insilico Medicine has enabled Rentosertib, the drug candidate with AI-driven novel target and AI-empowered innovative structure with Pharma.AI, the proprietary end-to-end AI drug discovery platform, and delivered the first proof of concept (POC) in a phase 2a clinical trial. Based on continuous advancements of Pharma.AI, Insilico has established over 40 proprietary innovative pipelines and keeps expanding into new modality areas such as peptides, Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC), and proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTAC).