Semiconductor company NVIDIA is partnering with global pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to establish an artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug development research institute. The plan is to integrate AI throughout the entire process of drug candidate discovery, development, and manufacturing to accelerate the pace of drug development.
NVIDIA and Lilly announced on the 12th (local time) at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference held in San Francisco, USA, that they will jointly invest up to $1 billion (approximately 1.4 trillion won) over the next five years to establish a 'Co-innovation AI Lab' in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Scientists from both companies and NVIDIA's AI engineers will conduct research in the same space, operating based on NVIDIA's life sciences platform 'BioNeMo' and the next-generation AI computing platform 'Vera Rubin'.
Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, emphasized, "AI is transforming every industry, but the deepest impact will be seen in life sciences," stating, "We are entering an era where vast biological and chemical domains are explored through computer simulations before actual molecules are created."
The two companies plan to enhance development efficiency not only by stopping at drug candidate discovery (target exploration and molecular design) but also by connecting experiments ('wet lab') and computations ('dry lab') to rapidly accumulate and learn data. Lilly also suggested expanding AI beyond drug development to encompass production and overall operations.
The expansion of AI companies into the medical field is accelerating. On the same day, OpenAI announced the acquisition of the health tech startup 'Torch', which integrates medical workflows (test results, medication information, medical records, etc.). There are evaluations that AI is beginning to penetrate the 'workflow' of hospitals and patients, aggressively targeting the medical market.
In the industry, the key keyword for this year's JP Morgan Healthcare Conference is also gathered around 'AI'. Jeremy Melman, Global Co-Head of JP Morgan Healthcare Investment, analyzed at the opening ceremony, "AI will change the paradigm across the pharmaceutical and biotech industries," adding, "The utilization of AI in the health tech sector is spreading, and related investments are increasing."
This event will be held from January 12 to 15 (local time) in San Francisco and is considered the largest event where global pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare companies discuss investment attraction and technological cooperation (licensing, joint research, M&A).
