Qiming Venture Partners' Kan Chen: Investing in Insilico Medicine four years before OpenAI went mainstream, AIDD platform has broad prospects
After completing its investment in Insilico Medicine, Qiming Venture Partners provided the company with sustained support and substantial assistance.
According to IPO Zaozhidao, Insilico Medicine Cayman TopCo (hereinafter referred to as "Insilico Medicine") officially listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 30, 2025, under the stock code "3696," becoming the largest Biotech IPO in Hong Kong's capital markets in 2025.
As a global leader in AI-driven drug discovery, Insilico Medicine has received investments from dozens of renowned institutions including Qiming Venture Partners since its founding. Notably, Qiming Venture Partners led Insilico Medicine's Series B round in 2019 and continued to increase its stake in subsequent rounds. Prior to the IPO, Qiming Venture Partners held approximately 7% of Insilico Medicine's shares, and Dr. Kan Chen, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners and co-head of Healthcare Innovation, serves as a non-executive director of Insilico Medicine.
Dr. Kan Chen stated: "Our investment in Insilico Medicine was based on a simple conviction that AI would profoundly transform the path and efficiency of drug R&D. When we decided to invest in 2019, what we saw was the team's frontier exploration at a time when generative AI had not yet become widespread. Today, through preclinical validation and pipeline licensing, Insilico Medicine's value in the AI pharma space is gradually materializing. Going forward, we expect AI to not only empower early-stage R&D but also genuinely accelerate clinical-stage processes, bringing new medicines to patients sooner."
Kan Chen, Partner at Qiming Venture Partners and co-head of Healthcare Innovation
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Recognizing AIDD as a Future Trend Early On
Continued Support for Insilico Medicine After Investment
Chen recalled first meeting Insilico Medicine founder Alex Zhavoronkov in September 2018. "We had dinner at Jin Mao Tower, where Qiming Venture Partners is based. That was the first time I heard Alex talk about generative AI — four years before OpenAI and generative AI became a phenomenon. Looking back now, I truly admire Alex's foresight. And Insilico Medicine had already begun using generative AI in drug molecule development."
What is little known is that while Qiming Venture Partners ultimately led Insilico Medicine's Series B round and became one of its major shareholders, the project faced considerable controversy at the investment committee. "Despite extensive internal research convincing us that AIDD was the future trend, the relevant concepts hadn't been proven yet, so there was opposition internally," Chen revealed. In 2018, Insilico Medicine collaborated with WuXi AppTec, using AI algorithms to target the DDR1 target and identify a small-molecule lead compound in just 46 days — an unprecedented speed. The results were published in Nature Biotechnology. "This milestone achievement allowed us to respond to the internal opposition," Chen recalled.
Of course, after completing its investment in Insilico Medicine, Qiming Venture Partners provided sustained companionship and substantial assistance. In particular, Dr. Feng Ren, Co-CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of Insilico Medicine, was introduced through Qiming Venture Partners' efforts.
"We later realized that while the team was exceptionally strong in AI, they lacked someone with genuine drug development experience. So we helped bring in Dr. Ren, established the Shanghai R&D team, and from there, truly built Insilico Medicine's early-stage project development and BD licensing model that generates cash flow — the AIDD business model," Chen explained.
Additionally, as the only non-executive director with drug development experience, Chen participates in the company's scientific committee and PCC nomination committee to oversee R&D progress, while also participating in interviews for R&D executives and advising on BD strategy.
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Increasing Validation of Molecules from Insilico Medicine's Platform
Expecting AI to Significantly Accelerate Clinical Development
To date, Insilico Medicine has efficiently built a pipeline portfolio covering over 30 innovative projects, spanning high-demand areas including oncology, immunology, fibrosis, and metabolism. It also holds Rentosertib (ISM001-055), the world's most advanced AI-discovered drug.
Meanwhile, 13 of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical companies by revenue have software platform collaborations with Insilico Medicine. Furthermore, Insilico Medicine has reached three pipeline licensing agreements with global pharmaceutical companies including Exelixis and Menarini, bringing $2 billion in potential revenue to the company. At the same time, multiple globally renowned pharmaceutical companies including Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Company, and Fosun Pharma have established drug discovery partnerships with Insilico Medicine.
In Chen's view, Insilico Medicine's achievements today stem from the substantial validation generated by its platform — on one hand, its first pipeline has shown preliminary efficacy in Phase II clinical trials; on the other hand, other pipelines have also secured partnerships, including a substantial upfront payment collaboration with Exelixis. "As this type of validation for the AIDD platform increases, Insilico Medicine will naturally become a preferred partner for top international pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, Insilico Medicine's global layout gives it a team with international clinical and BD experience, which also greatly facilitates cooperation with numerous top global pharma companies."
Regarding expectations for Insilico Medicine after its listing, Chen stated: "As platform validation continues to grow, we also expect the company to secure more and more partnerships, and for more projects to enter Phase I or Phase II clinical trials before being licensed out, with increasingly larger upfront payments for each project. Additionally, while AIDD platforms were previously mainly applied in the preclinical laboratory stage, we also expect the company to apply AI in the clinical stage, ultimately greatly accelerating clinical development speed."
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The "Crystallization" of Long-Term Collaboration Between Qiming Venture Partners' Internal Investment Teams
Boundless Prospects for the AIDD Sector
In fact, beyond Insilico Medicine, Qiming Venture Partners invested in Schrödinger as early as 2018 based on its research into the AIDD sector; Schrödinger listed on Nasdaq in early 2020.
Chen noted that through the Schrödinger investment, Qiming Venture Partners gained deeper understanding of the industry, including developing some methodology for how to conduct preliminary validation of AIDD technology. Another important learning was realizing that an AIDD platform offering only software services would grow slowly and face scaling difficulties.
"We believed Insilico Medicine's technology was more cutting-edge, with advantages over traditional methods in both cost and speed. But at the time, because there wasn't much validation in the AIDD sector, many biotech and tech investors didn't dare to invest, so the company faced some fundraising challenges. We used the methodology developed from our Schrödinger investment experience to conduct some preliminary validation of the company's platform, so when no one else was willing to lead, we stepped up to lead a round. With our lead investment, the company got through that difficult period. As the AIDD sector became increasingly hot, the company's subsequent fundraising also became smoother," Chen added.
It was precisely the experience from investing in Schrödinger that also made Qiming Venture Partners' investment team realize that pure software service revenue would scale relatively slowly. "This is also why we helped bring in Dr. Ren — by generating pipeline projects and licensing them out to scale and strengthen the company's platform, we also explored a new business model for AIDD."
Of course, the ability to precisely identify and invest in two AIDD companies that have reached IPO milestones — Insilico Medicine and Schrödinger — as well as a series of "AI + healthcare" leading companies including DeepWise, Magnesium Chemistry, and Benyao Technology, is also the result of long-term close collaboration between Qiming Venture Partners' two major investment teams. "The healthcare innovation team mainly looks at product-market fit, while the tech investment team mainly assesses the solidity of the technology itself. Going forward, as the integration between hard tech and pharmaceuticals becomes increasingly tight, we expect to see more and more collaboration," Chen said.
For the entire AIDD sector, Chen also shared his hopes. "In the future, we expect AI plus automation to further accelerate new drug R&D. Previously, AIDD mainly played a role in preclinical small-molecule R&D. Going forward, we hope to see AIDD accelerate other modalities such as large molecules, peptides, mRNA, and more. At the same time, AI can also play an increasingly significant role in accelerating patient enrollment, clinical protocol writing, clinical data analysis and report generation, and FDA review processes."
Source | IPO Zaozhidao
Author | Stone Jin
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Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. Currently, Qiming Venture Partners manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since its establishment, it has focused on investing in outstanding early and growth-stage companies in Technology and Healthcare Innovation.
To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns in their industries.
Many companies in Qiming Venture Partners' portfolio have grown into the most influential companies in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ: BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE: ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), Hesai Technology (NASDAQ: HSAI, 02525.HK), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ: WRD, 00800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ: ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ: SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), SinoCellTech (688520.SH), Insilico Medicine (03696.HK), AusperBio, Yuanxin Technology, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, Zhipu AI, StepFun, Biren Technology, and others.