Insitro
Insitro is an AI-driven drug discovery company that uses machine learning, human genetics, and high-throughput experimentation to identify therapeutic targets and design small molecules, oligonucleotides, and biologics for pharmaceutical partners and a wholly-owned pipeline in metabolic and CNS diseases.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersSouth San Francisco, United States
- Headcount251–500
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Insitro does
Insitro is an AI-driven drug discovery and development company founded in 2018 by Daphne Koller (co-founder of Coursera, former Stanford professor, former Chief Computing Officer at Calico) and headquartered in South San Francisco. The company operates a full-stack, modality-agnostic drug discovery platform anchored by the Virtual Human Platform, a genetically grounded causal AI engine that integrates multimodal human and cellular data to identify therapeutically validated targets. Platform components include ChemML for small molecule design, ClinML for clinical data phenotyping, CellML for cell-based screening, and POSH (Pooled Optical Screening in Human cells), which combines pooled CRISPR screening with self-supervised Vision Transformers to map gene function at scale. The January 2026 acquisition of CombinAbleAI added physics-informed biologics design capabilities, launching the TherML integrated therapeutic design engine spanning small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, and complex biologics.
The business model is partnership-driven rather than product-driven. Insitro generates revenue primarily through upfront payments, R&D/development/regulatory/commercial milestones, and royalties from co-development agreements with large pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners, supplemented by equity capital from top-tier life sciences and growth investors (a16z, ARCH, BlackRock, Casdin, CPP Investments, Foresite, GV, SoftBank, Temasek, Third Rock, T. Rowe Price). Flagship partnerships include Bristol Myers Squibb (initial $50M upfront and potential $2.1B+ in ALS milestones, plus subsequent $25M, $10M, and $20M payments), Eli Lilly (metabolic diseases and TuneLab ADMET data partnership), and Gilead Sciences (NASH). Active offices span South San Francisco, Tel Aviv (post-CombinAbleAI acquisition), Warsaw, and Kuala Lumpur, with research collaboration in the UK through Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Complementing the partner-funded model is an emerging wholly-owned pipeline: CTRO-1013, an siRNA MASH candidate with anti-fibrotic preclinical data presented in 2026, and the BAT-01 obesity program derived from an AI-enabled brown adipose tissue GWAS. Approximately 200-500 employees support R&D, ML, and partnership operations; the company conducted a 22% workforce reduction in May 2025 to extend cash runway into 2027, reflecting both pre-commercial cost discipline and broader biotech market pressure.
Insitro firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Insitro
- Legal name
- Insitro, Inc.
- Website
- https://insitro.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 251–500 employees
- Short description
- Insitro is an AI-driven drug discovery company that uses machine learning, human genetics, and high-throughput experimentation to identify therapeutic targets and design small molecules, oligonucleotides, and biologics for pharmaceutical partners and a wholly-owned pipeline in metabolic and CNS diseases.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Insitro industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI-driven drug discovery
- NAICS
- Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Biological Product (except Diagnostic) Manufacturing (325414)
- SIC
- Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Pharmaceutical Preparations (2834)
- akta.pro primary industry
- AI/ML Platforms for Drug Discovery & Experiment Optimization (HLAGAJAO)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening) (HLAAAIAE), Target Identification & Validation Platforms (omics-driven, chemoproteomics, genetic validation) (HLAAAIAI), In Silico / Computational Toxicology & PK/PD Modeling (HLAGAFAM)
Keywords
Where Insitro is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- South San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices4 records
Markets served
Insitro business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Pharmaceutical Partnerships and Licensing: Insitro generates revenue through strategic partnerships with pharmaceutical companies involving upfront payments, milestone payments (research, development, regulatory, and commercial), and royalties on successful products. Partnerships include BMS for ALS (up to $2.1B+ deal value), Eli Lilly for metabolic diseases, and Gilead for NASH therapies.
- Milestone Payments: Non-dilutive funding from pharmaceutical partnerships through research and development milestone achievements. Estimated $150M from non-dilutive partnerships as of recent funding rounds.
- Equity Funding: Capital raised through equity financing rounds from institutional investors including a16z, ARCH, BlackRock, Casdin, CPP Investments, Foresite Capital, GV, SoftBank, Temasek, Third Rock Ventures, and T. Rowe Price. Total approximately $800M raised.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels5 records
Insitro product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Insitro operates an AI-driven, full-stack modality-agnostic drug discovery platform that combines machine learning, human genetics, and high-throughput in vitro experimentation to identify disease targets and design therapeutic candidates across small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, and complex biologics. The company monetizes the platform through strategic co-development partnerships with pharmaceutical companies (BMS, Eli Lilly, Gilead) and Moorfields Eye Hospital, generating revenue from upfront payments, R&D/regulatory/commercial milestones, and royalties. Insitro also advances a wholly-owned pipeline of therapeutic candidates (e.g., CTRO-1013 for MASH, BAT-01 for obesity).
Product overview
Insitro is an AI therapeutics company offering a unified, full-stack modality-agnostic drug discovery platform. The core offering centers on the Virtual Human™ Platform—a genetically anchored causal AI engine—that integrates multi-modal human and cellular data to discover disease mechanisms. Built upon this foundation are specialized capability modules: TherML™ serves as the integrated therapeutic design engine spanning all modalities (small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, biologics); ChemML™ handles small molecule discovery with ADMET prediction and AI-driven design loops; CellML™ enables cell-based phenotypic screening; and ClinML™ processes clinical data for phenotype generation. The POSH platform provides pooled optical screening capabilities. The January 2026 acquisition of CombinAbleAI extended the platform to include advanced biologics design with physics-informed AI optimization. Pipeline includes therapeutic candidates such as CTRO-1013 for MASH and BAT-01 for obesity.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- TherML: Therapeutic Machine Learning platform for AI-driven drug design across small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, and complex biologics
- Virtual Human
- ChemML
- CellML
- ClinML
- POSH
Products and services
- Virtual Human Platform Genetically anchored causal AI engine that reveals how disease begins, progresses, and can be resolved by integrating the world's largest integrated multimodal corpus of human and cellular data to support target identification across therapeutic areas. Targeted at pharmaceutical R&D partners via strategic co-development agreements.
- TherML (Therapeutic Machine Learning) Platform Integrated therapeutic design engine spanning small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, and complex biologics in a single platform, enabling simultaneous in silico optimization of potency and developability before committing to experimental work. Available through co-development partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.
- ChemML Platform End-to-end small molecule discovery and optimization platform integrating proprietary Quantitative Adaptive Libraries, predictive ADMET modeling, AI-driven design loops, and a large compute cluster of 192 H100 GPUs. Used to discover molecules for partners such as Bristol Myers Squibb.
- CellML Platform Cell model platform for screening genetically supported targets in primary human cells using high-content imaging, transcriptomics, and functional assays to assess cellular phenotypes. Provides the wet-lab foundation for Insitro's ML-driven target validation work.
- ClinML Platform Clinical machine learning platform that analyzes multimodal clinical data including MRI scans, DXA imaging, and biomarker streams to generate high-quality phenotypes for genetic discovery. Used in human cohort analytics and clinical trial design.
- POSH (Pooled Optical Screening in Human cells) Platform Scalable experimental and computational platform integrating pooled CRISPR screening, high-content CellPaint imaging, and self-supervised Vision Transformers to map gene function at scale without relying on predefined biomarkers. Used in-house and through partner programs to identify therapeutic targets.
- CTRO-1013 (MASH therapeutic candidate) Liver-targeted IRS1 silencing siRNA therapeutic for MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis), demonstrating anti-fibrotic signals in preclinical models with effects partially independent of liver fat reduction, advancing toward first-in-human trials. Wholly-owned internal pipeline candidate.
- BAT-01 Program (Obesity target) Obesity therapeutic target identified through the first AI-enabled GWAS of brown adipose tissue using machine learning-derived phenotypes. In preclinical models, BAT-01 knockdown drives 15% body-weight reduction via peripheral adipose beiging. Internal pipeline program.
Quantifiable outcome
- De-risks drug discovery through human genetics validation at scale
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Insitro
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Insitro technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability10 records
Feature7 records
Insitro partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.
- CombinAbleAI (Roche/Genentech)flagshipAcquisition of CombinAbleAI platform from Roche/Genentech. The platform provides in silico biology capabilities and multi-omics data integration. Includes engineering team in Israel and computational biology expertise. Represents Insitro's largest strategic acquisition to date.
- Bristol Myers SquibbflagshipStrategic collaboration for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) drug discovery using Insitro's Virtual Human platform and machine learning capabilities. The partnership includes $50M upfront payment with potential milestone and royalty payments totaling over $2.1B. BMS and Insitro will co-develop targets identified through Insitro's platform.
- Moorfields Eye Hospital / INSIGHTcoreAI foundation model collaboration for ophthalmic image analysis and disease detection. INSIGHT project develops AI models using eye scan data for early disease detection and predictive analytics. Partnership provides access to large-scale clinical imaging data.
- Eli LillyflagshipStrategic agreement for metabolic diseases including MASLD (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease), MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis), and obesity. The partnership leverages Insitro's human genetics platform for target identification and validation in metabolic indications.
- Gilead SciencescorePartnership for NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) therapies using Insitro's machine learning-driven drug discovery platform. Collaboration focuses on target identification and validation for liver diseases with unmet medical need.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Insitro competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Recursion Pharmaceuticals: Public AI-driven drug discovery company combining high-throughput biology, automation, and ML to build a wholly-owned and partnered therapeutic pipeline — the closest publicly traded analog to Insitro's platform-plus-pipeline model.
- Exscientia: AI-native pharma with a generative chemistry platform producing small-molecule drug candidates for partners like BMS and Sanofi; competes head-to-head with Insitro's ChemML and partnership-driven GTM.
- Schrödinger: Computational chemistry and physics-based simulation platform serving pharma partners and advancing a wholly-owned pipeline; overlaps with Insitro on physics-informed molecular design (especially post-CombinAbleAI) and platform licensing.
- BenevolentAI: AI drug discovery company using knowledge graphs and ML for target identification and clinical development; comparable to Insitro in the target-ID and repurposing segments and competes for similar pharma partnerships.
- Atomwise: Pioneer in structure-based small-molecule AI design (AtomNet) with pharma partnerships across multiple therapeutic areas; overlaps with Insitro's ChemML and virtual screening capabilities.
Emerging players
- Isomorphic Labs: Alphabet/DeepMind-backed AI drug discovery company applying AlphaFold-derived models to partnered drug design; competes for the same large-pharma ML-discovery mandates and benefits from Alphabet's compute scale.
- Genesis Therapeutics: AI-driven small-molecule design company combining graph neural networks with physics; competes with Insitro's ChemML for partnership-driven discovery programs and on generative chemistry quality.
- XtalPi: China-based AI + robotics drug discovery company with significant pharma partnerships and a public listing; relevant regional and platform peer to Insitro's modality-agnostic design ambitions.
- Iambic Therapeutics: AI-driven drug discovery company using physics-informed neural networks for small-molecule design; comparable to Insitro's ChemML and broader ML-platform thesis with overlapping partnership-driven GTM.
Broad incumbents
- Verily (Alphabet): Alphabet-owned life sciences platform leveraging large-scale clinical and biological data, including former Daphne Koller involvement as chief computing officer; adjacent incumbent in the same ML-meets-biology space, and a potential partner or competitor.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Insitro social profiles
Digital presenceInsitro financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Insitro leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles11 records
Insitro subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Insitro funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors18 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Insitro M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A2 records
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Insitro
What does Insitro do?
Insitro operates an AI-driven, full-stack modality-agnostic drug discovery platform that combines machine learning, human genetics, and high-throughput in vitro experimentation to identify disease targets and design therapeutic candidates across small molecules, oligonucleotides, antibodies, and complex biologics. The company monetizes the platform through strategic co-development partnerships with pharmaceutical companies (BMS, Eli Lilly, Gilead) and Moorfields Eye Hospital, generating revenue from upfront payments, R&D/regulatory/commercial milestones, and royalties. Insitro also advances a wholly-owned pipeline of therapeutic candidates (e.g., CTRO-1013 for MASH, BAT-01 for obesity).
Is Insitro a public or private company?
Insitro is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Insitro founded?
Insitro was founded in 2018. It employs 251 to 500 people.
Where is Insitro based?
Insitro is headquartered in South San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Insitro make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Pharmaceutical Partnerships and Licensing is the primary driver. The others are milestone Payments and equity Funding.
Who are Insitro's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Exscientia, Schrödinger, BenevolentAI and Atomwise. Emerging players are Isomorphic Labs, Genesis Therapeutics, XtalPi and Iambic Therapeutics. Verily (Alphabet) is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does Insitro have an API?
No public API is recorded for Insitro.
What industry is Insitro in?
Insitro's product category is AI-driven drug discovery. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAGAJAO, AI/ML Platforms for Drug Discovery & Experiment Optimization, with a secondary code of HLAAAIAE, AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening). Its NAICS code is 541714 and its SIC code is 8731.