Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan joins Anthropic board

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has appointed Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan to its board of directors. The pharma executive is the healthcare executive to be part of the company's board of directors, and his appointment is an indicator of Anthropic's growing interest in using AI for drug discovery and medicine.

Narasimhan, who has been at the helm of Novartis since 2018, welcomed the appointment, saying technology creates the most value when deployed responsibly, a view that aligns closely with Anthropic's stated mission of building safe AI.

"Working across medicine, innovation and global health has shown me the transformative potential of technology when deployed responsibly. In healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the hardest scientific challenges, from deepening our understanding of disease biology to designing better medicines," said Narasimhan.

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Narasimhan joins Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings and Chris Liddell on Anthropic's Board of Directors.

"Vas brings something rare to our board. He has overseen the development and approval of more than 35 novel medicines for the benefit of patients around the world in one of the most regulated industries," said Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic. "Getting powerful new technology to people safely and at scale is what we think about every day at Anthropic. Vas has been doing exactly that for years, and I'm grateful he's joining us."

Before joining Novartis, Narasimhan led programs fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis across India, Africa, and South America.

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Aside from his work in the pharmaceutical industry, Narasimhan is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine and sits on the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves as a trustee of the University of Chicago and a fellow of the Harvard Medical School board. Narasimhan is the former chair of PhRMA, the powerful Washington-based pharmaceutical industry body, and continues to serve on its board.

"Working across medicine, innovation, and global health has shown me the transformative potential of technology when deployed responsibly. In healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the hardest scientific challenges, from deepening our understanding of disease biology to designing better medicines," said Narasimhan. "Anthropic is setting the standard for how AI should be developed to benefit humanity, and I'm honored to join the Board and contribute to its mission."

Narasimhan's appointment is the latest development in the growing intersection between AI and the pharmaceutical industry. It comes shortly after Merck entered a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to expand the use of artificial intelligence across its pharmaceutical operations.