Ozempic-maker turns to Anthropic to turbocharge medical research
The Danish pharma giant Novo said AI tools offer "completely new scientific opportunities."
Novo, the Danish pharmaceutical company formerly known as Novo Nordisk, has formed a partnership with Anthropic, an American artificial intelligence company, to speed up the development of new medicines and AI-driven software. This collaboration was announced on Wednesday, following remarks from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about the potential benefits of AI in healthcare during her State of the EU speech earlier in the day.
Despite concerns voiced by some tech industry figures about the potential existential risks posed by super AI within the next decade, Novo remains optimistic about the collaboration. The company aims to become "the world's most AI-driven healthcare company" by leveraging Anthropic's models and its innovative tool, Claude Science.
Mike Doustdar, CEO of Novo Nordisk, highlighted the transformative potential of AI in drug discovery and understanding human biology. He emphasized that incorporating AI tools into their research could significantly shorten timelines, potentially compressing a century of scientific breakthroughs into just a decade.
Anthropic's CEO and co-founder, Dario Amodei, echoed these sentiments, stating that frontier AI models could accelerate research efforts. He assured that data governance and human oversight would be robust, ensuring responsible use of the technology.
This partnership comes at a time when the potential of AI in healthcare is being recognized. Von der Leyen highlighted examples of AI's role in breast cancer detection through AI-supported mammography, emphasizing the importance of using AI to empower doctors rather than replacing them.
Written by urgent.news from Politico EU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.