Veritas In Silico Inc.

Veritas In Silico, Inc. is a drug discovery biotech company that leverages its proprietary AI drug discovery platform "aibVIS" to pursue the creation of mRNA-targeted small-molecule drugs, an approach that has been difficult to achieve with conventional drug discovery technologies. Founded in 2016, the company listed on the TSE Growth Market in 2024. As part of its platform business, it conducts joint drug discovery research with four domestic pharmaceutical companies—Toray, Shionogi, RaQualia Pharma, and Takeda Pharmaceutical—while also advancing in-house drug discovery of nucleic acid drugs (ASOs) as part of its pipeline business. The company targets a wide range of disease areas, including cancer, central nervous system disorders, and rare diseases, aiming to address unmet medical needs. Since 2025, the company has been transitioning to a hybrid business model that combines the platform-type and pipeline-type approaches.

In the platform business, the company enters into joint drug discovery research agreements with pharmaceutical companies, progressively earning upfront contract payments, research support funding, research milestones, development milestones, royalties, and sales milestones. In the pipeline business, the company independently creates drug candidate compounds such as ASOs, and generates large upfront payments and post-development revenue through out-licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies. The company has also devised creative funding arrangements, such as its joint research with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company, in which it secures joint research funding (expected to receive half of the total ¥300 million, i.e., ¥150 million) in exchange for manufacturing rights.

Business revenue decelerated sharply from ¥360 million in FY2023 to ¥195 million in FY2024 to ¥91 million in FY2025, and cumulative Q1 FY2026 revenue was ¥18 million (down 26% year on year). The operating loss widened to ¥122 million on a cumulative Q1 basis (versus ¥81 million in the same period of the prior year). Research and development expenses increased to ¥67 million in Q1 (versus ¥42 million in the same period of the prior year), while the structural issue of stagnant revenue growth persisted. In addition, an impairment loss on tangible fixed assets of ¥135 million was recorded as an extraordinary loss, causing the quarterly net loss to balloon to ¥256 million. There is no change to the full-year earnings forecast (business revenue of ¥113 million, operating loss of ¥569 million), and the company states that there has been no particular impact from the external environment (such as the situation in the Middle East and surging energy prices).