Insilico Medicine announced Friday that its collaboration with Hisun Pharmaceutical has yielded its first preclinical candidate, just days after the AI drug developer made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in what the company said was the city's largest biotech IPO of 2025.The pair launched their partnership last April to leverage Insilico's generative AI (genAI) platform, Pharma.AI, to advance AI-driven drug discovery for selected targets and indications. Over the past eight months, Insilico led early-stage research, generating preclinical data that satisfied jointly defined preclinical candidate criteria and received Hisun's endorsement. Hisun will next conduct the studies required for IND applications and oversee subsequent clinical development.The rapid progression to candidate nomination is "another vivid example of how AI can drive innovation in early-stage drug research," said Feng Ren, co-CEO and chief scientific officer of Insilico. "The joint programme focuses on a relatively novel target and addresses a disease area with substantial unmet medical needs." Pharma.AI combines AI and multi-omics analysis for target discovery and prioritisation, identifying and ranking disease-relevant biological targets. The platform also incorporates multiple generative chemistry engines to design novel molecular structures with desired properties, as well as predictive modelling powered by large language models and specialised research assistants."With the support of our Pharma.AI platform, we can systematically explore a broad biological and chemical space in a shorter time frame, bringing more innovative treatment options to patients and further strengthening our confidence in AI's potential to empower drug R&D," said Ren.Insilico collaborated with a string of pharma partners last year, including TaiGen, Atossa Therapeutics, Lilly, Prelude Therapeutics, Tenacia Biotechnology, Therasid Bioscience, Harbour BioMed, Menarini Group and others. Since 2021, the company has nominated more than 20 development and preclinical candidates, received IND clearance for 10 molecules and completed first-in-human trials for its two most advanced candidates.Preclinical drug discovery benchmarks released last February showed that most of Insilico's internal programmes reached candidate nomination within 12 to 18 months — compared with two and a half to four years using traditional early-stage drug discovery — while synthesising and testing between 60 and 200 molecules per programme.