According to Beating monitoring cited in the report, Insilico Medicine founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov delivered a keynote speech at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, laying out how AI is changing the way new drugs are developed.
Drug discovery timeline could fall to 9-12 months
Zhavoronkov said the conventional process from target identification to a candidate compound usually takes four to five years. China’s domestic R&D structure and talent pool alone can make that process about two years faster than the global average, he said. With AI added on top, the timeline can be compressed further to nine to 12 months, which he described as the “miracle” possible from combining AI with a China-style development structure.
2019 Nature paper and the spread of generative AI
Looking back, Zhavoronkov said his team’s 2019 paper in Nature was the first to show that reinforcement learning and AI could generate a new molecule within 46 days and then validate it successfully in the lab. He said the spread of generative AI later changed research workflows, while open models such as DeepSeek allowed scientists around the world to apply AI to public health and new drug research.
Programs have reached Phase III in China
He also disclosed that the company already has drugs in Phase III clinical trials in China. Those programs include targeted therapies for complex conditions as well as candidate drugs aimed at both disease and aging. Related research has appeared in multiple papers in the Nature family of journals.
Robot-driven facility built in Shanghai’s Jinqiao
Zhavoronkov said the company established a robot-driven drug R&D factory in Jinqiao, Pudong, Shanghai. The project went from concept to facility buildout in 18 months, setting multiple records.
Insilico is now extending that “pharma superintelligence” capability to other drugmakers, with the goal of improving quality and efficiency across more than 1,200 tasks involved in new drug development.
Call for an open academic community
At the end of his remarks, Zhavoronkov called for the creation of an academic community that would allow AI to benefit the world through an open approach, especially in public health and in extending healthy human lifespan.