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AstraZeneca has signed a multi-year agreement with artificial intelligence (AI) biotechnology company insitro to discover potential treatments for difficult-to-treat liver and heart diseases. The partnership will use AI-driven research to identify new drug targets and help develop therapies for conditions that have limited treatment options.
Under the agreement announced on Thursday (October 15, 2026), AstraZeneca will pay insitro USD 40 million upfront. The California-based biotech company could also receive up to USD 1.46 billion in development and commercial milestone payments, along with royalties from future sales of medicines developed through the collaboration.
The collaboration will focus on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a serious liver disease, and cardiomyopathies, a group of conditions affecting the heart muscle.
Researchers have struggled to identify the underlying biological processes driving these diseases. Better understanding these mechanisms could help scientists identify promising drug targets and develop treatments that address the conditions' causes.
Through this partnership, both companies aim to use AI and biological research to explore potential treatment options. However, the agreement focuses on drug discovery and development, meaning any resulting medicines will still need further testing before they can reach patients.
Insitro will use its Virtual Human AI platform to investigate the biological factors that contribute to both diseases. The technology combines laboratory-grown cell models with machine learning to help researchers study disease processes and identify potential targets for new medicines.
The company will work on targets nominated by AstraZeneca, moving promising discoveries from early research toward the development-candidate stage.
AI-based analysis could help scientists examine complex biological data and narrow down potential drug targets. This approach may also help research teams make more informed decisions about which candidates deserve further investigation.
AstraZeneca will fund and manage subsequent clinical trials for programs advanced through the partnership. The pharmaceutical company will also have exclusive worldwide rights to develop selected programs identified through the collaboration.
The arrangement combines insitro's AI-based discovery capabilities with AstraZeneca's drug-development experience. Still, the agreement's commercial value will depend on research progress and achievement of specified milestones.
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The deal adds AstraZeneca to insitro's growing list of pharmaceutical collaborators. The biotech company has also worked with Bristol Myers Squibb on research into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive disease that affects nerve cells controlling voluntary muscles.
Insitro has separately partnered with Eli Lilly to develop AI models that predict how small-molecule drugs may behave in living organisms. The latest agreement highlights pharmaceutical companies' growing interest in AI-assisted research. While the technology could help researchers identify promising targets, its impact will ultimately depend on whether those discoveries lead to safe and effective medicines.
