Eli Lilly and Ensilico Pharmaceuticals Sign AI-Driven R&D Agreement Worth $2.75 Billion

Eli Lilly is joining forces with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered biotech, Ensilico Medicines, in a $2.75 billion drug discovery and development deal.

Through this collaboration, Lilly will use the Insilico Pharma.AI platform to support its novel therapeutic drug discovery and development efforts spanning multiple disease areas. Under the terms of the deal, Lilly will have exclusive global development and commercialization rights to any candidate arising out of this agreement.

Insilico will also support Lilly in its development process, as the biotech will help advance multiple R&D programs related to Lilly’s chosen targets.

In exchange for using Insilico’s services, Lilly will pay $115 million upfront, while committing itself to up to $2.63 billion in development, regulatory and commercial-stage payments tied to the lead candidates produced. Ensilico will also be eligible to receive tiered royalties on future sales.

In a March 29 statement, Insilico noted that the pair will primarily focus on diseases that do not meet the highest requirements, although no further details about the specifics of the collaboration were disclosed.

The deal deepens Lilly’s relationship with Ancelico, as the pair has previously signed several AI-focused deals, including a research agreement worth more than $100 million due in November 2025. Lilly and Ancelico first collaborated through an AI licensing agreement in 2023.

Lilly’s deal with Ancilico comes amid deal-making activity by the Indiana-based pharma, as it looks to stock more pipeline with profits stemming from the growing commercial success of its terzapatide franchise.

Lilly has signed several deals in recent months that center around AI, which the company is using to accelerate development timelines and discover new drugs. Eli Lilly has signed 16 AI-focused deals by 2025, including seven licensing agreements valued at more than $2 billion, according to Global Data’s Pharmaceutical Intelligence Center. This includes an AI-driven RNA therapeutics deal with Craven Bio valued at more than $1 billion, which the pair signed back in April 2025.

GlobalData is the parent company Pharmaceutical Technology.

Outside of the AI ​​field, Eli Lilly has acquired several companies so far in 2026, including inflammation specialist, Ventix Biosciences and handed over $1.2 billion and $2.4 billion to acquire. alive The cell therapy’s developer, Orna Therapeutics, in January and February 2026, respectively.

Currently, the company is riding high on the commercial successes of ZipBound and Monjaro in the obesity and type 2 diabetes markets, which have pushed the pharma giant into the $1trn market cap club primarily populated by tech players such as Apple, Meta and NVIDIA.

In the broader field of pharma, many companies are also investing in AI to power the next generation of pipeline development.

This includes the UK-Swedish pharma company, AstraZeneca, which has agreed to acquire Massachusetts-based Model AI to support drug development in its oncology pipeline in January 2026.

“Eli Lilly and Insilico Medicine forge $2.75bn AI-driven R&D deal” was originally developed and published by Pharmaceutical Technologies, a brand owned by Global Data.

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