Novo Nordisk builds AI drug discovery platform on Azure with Microsoft Research
Novo Nordisk· DenmarkAzure OpenAI Service · Azure Cosmos DB · Azure Kubernetes Service +2Novo Nordisk partnered with Microsoft Research to build an AI platform on Azure AI and data stacks spanning regulatory affairs, early research, drug discovery and trial design, using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service, with Power BI and Power Apps for collaboration. The platform includes a copilot for researchers, shared reasoning-chain templates, and governance/auditing of how data and models are used. The teams published early results on predictive AI models for cardiovascular disease risk detection, including an algorithm that Novo Nordisk says predicts patients' cardiovascular risk better than the best clinical standards, drawing on more than 100 years of insulin research data.
Overview
Novo Nordisk partnered with Microsoft Research to build an AI platform on Azure AI and data stacks spanning regulatory affairs, early research, drug discovery and trial design, using Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service, with Power BI and Power Apps for collaboration. The platform includes a copilot for researchers, shared reasoning-chain templates, and governance/auditing of how data and models are used. The teams published early results on predictive AI models for cardiovascular disease risk detection, including an algorithm that Novo Nordisk says predicts patients' cardiovascular risk better than the best clinical standards, drawing on more than 100 years of insulin research data.
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Inspect the highlighted sourceThe challenge
Developing high-quality medicine is a resource-intensive endeavor that requires collaboration across Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk aimed to scale a pipeline of drug discovery, development, and data science capabilities with AI and machine learning.
The solution
In partnership with Microsoft Research, Novo Nordisk built an AI platform on Azure AI and data stacks spanning regulatory affairs, early research, drug discovery and trial design. The platform combines unification (a single place to discover data and models), a copilot tool for researchers to reason with data and AI, shared reasoning-chain templates for collaboration, and governance auditing of how data and models are used. Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service is used alongside Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), with Power BI and Power Apps for collaboration.
Reported business value
The teams recently published early results from predictive AI models for advanced risk detection in cardiovascular diseases, including an algorithm that, according to Novo Nordisk's Senior Vice President of Digital Science and Innovation, can predict patients' cardiovascular risk better than the best clinical standards.
Sources
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