Bristol Myers deepens AI investment with Anthropic deal
Bristol Myers Squibb announced Wednesday it will deploy Claude, Anthropic's AI tool, across its operations. The Princeton, New Jersey-based drugmaker joins a wave of pharmaceutical companies betting on generative AI and LLM technology to accelerate drug development and streamline internal processes.
The company outlined three immediate priorities: speeding software and AI development for its engineering and data science teams, applying Claude to research and development, and using it in manufacturing, quality monitoring, and communications with healthcare professionals.
Greg Meyers, Bristol Myers' chief digital and technology officer, said the goal extends beyond deploying a chatbot. "The real prize is the untapped value still trapped behind decades of data silos, and this collaboration is how we reach it," he said.
Industry-wide AI partnerships accelerate
Bristol Myers is not alone. Merck announced a potential $1 billion partnership with Google Cloud in April. Novo Nordisk, maker of Ozempic, said it would integrate OpenAI's tools into every step of drug development.
Takeda Pharmaceutical signed a deal potentially worth more than $1.7 billion with AI specialist Iambic Therapeutics in February. Eli Lilly agreed to a partnership with Insilico Medicine that may exceed $2 billion.
These partnerships aim to accelerate target identification and reduce reliance on trial-and-error methods. AI models trained on disease data can identify new therapeutic targets faster than traditional approaches.
Challenges remain
Large language models develop their capabilities by absorbing existing literature and data. When that data is inconsistent or incorrect, the models reflect those flaws.
Hallucinations-where AI generates plausible-sounding but false information-pose a particular risk. Bristol Myers plans to use Claude to help draft clinical study reports and patient safety narratives for regulatory submissions, areas where accuracy is non-negotiable.
Skepticism persists about how much AI will ultimately transform pharmaceutical development. The technology's limitations in handling inconsistent data and generating false outputs remain unresolved challenges.
Bristol Myers expressed confidence regardless. "The companies that lead the next decade of biopharma will be the ones that learn to operate fundamentally differently with AI, and BMS intends to be one of them," Meyers said.
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