Novo Nordisk taps OpenAI

Novo Nordisk said Tuesday it will roll out OpenAI tools across the company to speed the development of new medicines, including obesity treatments. (reuters.com) (bloomberg.com) The Danish drugmaker said the partnership will cover drug discovery, manufacturing and commercial operations, and that financial terms were not disclosed. Novo said the system will be introduced through pilot programs before broader rollout by the end of 2026. (reuters.com) (pharmaceutical-technology.com) Novo said employees already used a custom version of ChatGPT, but the new agreement expands that into a companywide program with workforce training, data controls and human oversight. The company said OpenAI’s tools will be used globally, from research to delivery. (moneycontrol.com) (biospace.com) Drug discovery starts with large datasets: lab results, trial records and manufacturing logs. Novo and OpenAI said the aim is to use artificial intelligence to spot patterns in that material faster, so scientists can identify promising drug candidates and move projects ahead sooner. (cnbc.com) (wsj.com) The timing is tied to a tougher obesity-drug race. Reuters reported that Novo has fallen behind Eli Lilly in the weight-loss market, and Bloomberg said the OpenAI deal adds to Novo’s earlier artificial-intelligence work with Nvidia announced in June 2025. (reuters.com) (bloomberg.com) (nvidia.com) Novo is still a giant in obesity care. In its 2025 annual report, the company said obesity-care sales rose 26% in Danish kroner to 82.3 billion kroner, and it put its share of the branded global obesity market at 59.6%. (novonordisk.com) But its pipeline has hit pressure. In February 2026, Novo said its next-generation obesity drug CagriSema underperformed Eli Lilly’s Zepbound in a head-to-head trial, a setback Reuters described as a blow to Novo’s effort to regain leadership in weight loss. (reuters.com) (biospace.com) Novo said the OpenAI partnership is designed to help employees “move faster” and “work smarter,” but it also said decisions will remain under human oversight and strict governance. For a drugmaker under pressure to find the next obesity winner, the test is whether faster analysis turns into approved treatments. (biospace.com) (reuters.com)