Anthropic Appoints Novartis CEO Narasimhan To Board - BW Businessworld

Narasimhan joins a board that includes Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings and Chris Liddell

Anthropic has named Vas Narasimhan, Chief Executive Officer of Novartis, to its board of directors, in a move aimed at deepening life sciences expertise within the governance framework of advanced artificial intelligence systems. The appointment strengthens the company's push to connect frontier AI development with real-world applications in healthcare and regulated industries.

"Vas brings something rare to our board," said Daniela Amodei, cofounder and president of Anthropic. "He has spent his career doing what we are trying to do with AI, taking powerful, complex technology and getting it to people safely at scale."

Narasimhan, of Indian origin, joins a board that includes Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings and Chris Liddell, further broadening the company's mix of expertise across technology, policy and industry.

His induction was carried out through Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent governance body created to oversee the company's mission and ensure alignment between commercial priorities and public benefit goals. Following his appointment, directors nominated through the Trust now hold a majority on the board, the company said in a blog post.

At Novartis, Narasimhan has overseen the development and regulatory approval of more than 35 new medicines, bringing extensive experience in healthcare innovation, global public health and pharmaceutical regulation. Earlier in his career, he worked on public health programmes addressing HIV or AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis across India, Africa and South America.

He is also a member of the US National Academy of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on advisory boards at the University of Chicago and Harvard Medical School. Previously, he chaired the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and continues to serve on its board of directors.

Neil Shah, chair of the Long-Term Benefit Trust, said Narasimhan's appointment reflects the governance model's aim of embedding long-term scientific and ethical oversight into core strategic decisions.

Daniela Amodei added that his experience operating within highly regulated pharmaceutical systems aligns closely with Anthropic's emphasis on safety, controlled deployment and responsible scaling of advanced AI models.

Founded as a public-benefit corporation, Anthropic's governance structure, anchored by the Long-Term Benefit Trust, is designed to ensure that key decisions remain aligned with its mission even as it expands its frontier AI capabilities.

The appointment comes amid a broader industry trend in which AI companies are increasingly bringing in leaders from regulated sectors such as healthcare, finance and defence to guide the deployment of high-impact technologies, particularly as frontier models move closer to real-world clinical and scientific applications.

Commenting on the development, Narasimhan said AI is already reshaping biomedical research and drug discovery. "In healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the hardest scientific challenges from understanding disease biology to designing better medicines," he said. "Anthropic is setting a standard for how AI should be developed to benefit humanity."

The development also follows a series of India-focused leadership appointments at the San Francisco-based AI company, including Amlan Mohanty, who leads policy initiatives in India, and Irina Ghose, former Managing Director of Microsoft India, who was appointed India Managing Director earlier this year.