SAN FRANCISCO, February 29, 2024 – A groundbreaking collaboration between NVIDIA and Lilly will inject up to $1 billion into artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery over the next five years. The partnership aims to dramatically accelerate the traditionally slow and costly process of bringing new medicines to patients.
AI-Powered Labs: A New Era for Drug Development
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The initiative will create a continuous learning system connecting Lilly’s research facilities with NVIDIA’s computational power.
- NVIDIA and Lilly are jointly investing up to $1 billion in an AI co-innovation lab.
- The lab, located in San Francisco, will utilize a “scientist in the loop” framework.
- The project will leverage NVIDIA’s BioNeMo platform and agentic AI to speed up drug discovery.
- Digital twins will be used to optimize Lilly’s manufacturing processes.
The new lab will employ a “scientist in the loop” framework, fostering a continuous learning system that seamlessly integrates Lilly’s experimental “wet labs” with computational “dry labs,” enabling 24/7 AI-assisted experimentation to support biologists and chemists. This means AI won’t replace scientists, but rather augment their abilities, accelerating the pace of innovation.
What is the goal of this collaboration? The primary aim is to reinvent drug discovery by exploring vast biological and chemical spaces in silico – meaning through computer simulation – before any physical molecules are created, according to a press release.
Expanding AI’s Reach Beyond Discovery
Beyond initial drug discovery, the companies plan to apply AI across the entire pharmaceutical lifecycle, including clinical development, manufacturing, and commercial operations. This expansion will involve integrating multimodal models, agentic AI, robotics, and digital twins.
Digital twins, virtual replicas of Lilly’s manufacturing lines, will be used to stress-test, model, and optimize the supply chain before implementing real-world changes. This proactive approach promises to enhance efficiency and resilience in drug production.
“AI is transforming every industry, and its most profound impact will be in life sciences,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “NVIDIA and Lilly are bringing together the best of our industries to invent a new blueprint for drug discovery.”
Building on Previous Successes
This isn’t the first foray into AI for these two companies. NVIDIA and Lilly partnered last year on an AI factory for drug discovery, powered by over 1,000 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs. The new lab builds upon this foundation, promising even greater advancements.
Lilly CEO and chair Dave Ricks, speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, described small molecule discovery as “like a work of art.” He suggested that framing it as an engineering problem, rather than a purely discovery-based process, could dramatically impact human life.
Quick fact: The new AI lab will utilize NVIDIA’s BioNeMo platform to accelerate drug discovery by creating a feedback loop between experimentation, data generation, and AI model development.
