Novo Nordisk partners with OpenAI

Novo Nordisk said Tuesday it is partnering with OpenAI to use artificial intelligence across drug discovery, manufacturing and commercial work. (novonordisk.com) The Danish drugmaker said the deal will roll out OpenAI’s tools globally to help staff analyze large datasets, identify drug targets faster and shorten the path from research to patient use. Novo Nordisk said the partnership includes “strict data governance and human oversight.” (biospace.com) Chief executive Mike Doustdar said the company wants to find treatments for obesity and diabetes faster, while OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said life sciences is one of the industries being reshaped by artificial intelligence. Novo Nordisk shares rose 2.8% shortly after the opening bell on April 14. (cnbc.com) Drug discovery is partly a search problem: researchers sift through huge sets of biology, chemistry and trial data to spot patterns that might point to a new medicine. Novo Nordisk said the new tools will also be used in manufacturing and commercial operations, not just in laboratories. (cnbc.com) The timing comes as large drugmakers are trying to turn artificial intelligence from a research experiment into a company-wide productivity tool. Reuters reported industry coverage has framed the deal as a sign that big technology companies are pushing deeper into pharmaceutical research and development. (techxplore.com) Novo Nordisk is making the move from a position of scale. Its 2025 sales rose 6% in Danish kroner to 309.1 billion kroner, and the company said obesity care sales reached 82 billion kroner in 2025. (annualreport.novonordisk.com 1) (annualreport.novonordisk.com 2) The company had already been building its artificial intelligence stack before this week’s announcement. In 2024, Novo Nordisk said it was working with Nvidia and Denmark’s Gefion sovereign artificial intelligence supercomputer to build custom models and agents for early research and clinical development. (cnbc.com) Outside experts have cautioned that artificial intelligence is still not an “end-to-end” engine for drug development. Arthur D. Little partner Ben van der Schaaf told CNBC last month that nearer-term gains may come in areas such as trial design, patient recruitment and site selection, where pharmaceutical work remains slow and manual. (cnbc.com) For Novo Nordisk, the test will be whether a broad software partnership changes speed inside a company that already dominates obesity and diabetes care. Tuesday’s announcement promised faster decisions and tighter use of data; the harder proof will come in future pipeline updates, factory output and commercial execution. (novonordisk.com) (biospace.com)