AI drug designer Insilico Medicine aims to generate nearly $300M in Hong Kong IPO
After reportedly flirting with going public for years, the artificial intelligence-powered drug developer Insilico Medicine has laid out plans to raise about $292 million through a listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.
The company plans to put up a total of more than 94 million shares—with about 10% offered in Hong Kong and the remainder placed internationally—priced at 24.05 per share in Hong Kong dollars, or about $3.09 U.S. apiece.
The IPO—scheduled to run through Dec. 23, with trading starting Dec. 30—will wrap up a year that saw Insilico raise $110 million through a March venture capital round and ink multiple R&D deals
, including a recent pact with Eli Lilly potentially worth
.
Insilico has long maintained an office in Hong Kong, and also counts outposts in Shanghai and Taipei, as well as Boston, New York, Montreal and Abu Dhabi. Since its 2014 founding, the former
and
has employed generative AI programs to help design molecules into potential drugs across a variety of diseases for its Big Pharma customers, as well as for its own internal research pipeline focused on fibrosis and longevity.
The company’s Pharma.AI platform spans target identification, small-molecule generation, and the prediction of clinical outcomes. Insilico also aims to bring more automation to laboratories, boosting their throughput in examining the countless compounds that AI can provide.
This past February, Insilico published benchmarking timelines from
, which on average took about 13 months from the initial building of a large library of potential molecules through the whittling down to a chosen few for synthesis, testing and finally selection for clinical trials.
Prior to that, Insilico planted its flag in 2021 by identifying a new biological target linked to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, designing a novel molecule to match and completing preclinical experiments,
all within a span of 18 months. The company reported a price tag of about $2 million for this work, a dramatic cut from traditional drug discovery costs.
Now serving as the company’s lead internal candidate, rentosertib has cleared early safety studies in IPF and has shown improvements in lung function through a phase 2a placebo-controlled trial of 71 participants conducted in China. Formerly known as ISM001-055, the molecule represents a potentially first-in-class TNIK inhibitor. The study’s results were published
.
In 2026, Insilico plans to examine rentosertib in a kidney fibrosis clinical trial, as well as in an inhalable formulation for the treatment of IPF.
In its
(PDF) filed with the Hong Kong exchange, the company reported $85.8 million in revenue for the 2024 calendar year, with a net loss of $17.4 million. For the first six months of 2025, revenue and losses totaled $27.5 million and $18.9 million, respectively.
In terms of venture capital, Insilico has raised more than $500 million to date, with backers including Warburg Pincus, Qiming Venture Partners, WuXi AppTec, B Capital Group, Prosperity7, OrbiMed, Deerfield, Pavilion Capital, PIDC, CPE fund, Mirae Asset Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures, Eight Roads, Lake Bleu Capital, Baidu Ventures and Sinovation Ventures. Its $110 million series E round this year was led by the Hong Kong-based firm Value Partners.
