BIO:ON Insight #5 · Jun 22, 2026
An algorithm designs the drug, two hormones shake the market, and five months of secret talks end in $10 billion
Insilico and SK Biopharm sign a $2.5B AI drug discovery deal, Novo's CagriSema improves blood sugar and weight together in Phase 3, and Pfizer lands a $10B cancer deal with Innovent after five months of secret talks.
What I learned this week
The word that kept coming back to me this week was time. AI cuts the time to find candidates, combinations cut the time for patients to see results, and Pfizer even cut the time it took to negotiate. With patent cliffs looming, time really is money in this industry. But what got faster is the front end. The long tunnel of clinical trials is still there, and I don't want to forget that. See you next issue. 🙏
Yaehyun Lee · Quoted from the Editor's Insight I wrote for this issue.
AI summary
- 1Insilico Medicine and SK Biopharm signed a $2.5B deal around AI-designed drug candidates.
- 2Novo Nordisk's CagriSema improved blood sugar and weight together in Phase 3.
- 3Pfizer announced a $10B cancer deal with Innovent after five months of secret talks.
Relevant rolesBDR&DClinical development
Summary and tags generated by AI from the issue text.
References
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