An artificial intelligence company has brought on its first pharmaceutical industry executive as a board member, signaling growing ties between AI technology and healthcare sectors.
Anthropic announced Tuesday that Vas Narasimhan, who serves as Chief Executive Officer of pharmaceutical giant Novartis, will join the company’s board of directors. The appointment represents a milestone for the AI startup, which develops the Claude chatbot system.
Narasimhan now sits alongside other notable board members including Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei, President Daniela Amodei, Confluent’s CEO Jay Kreps, and Netflix chairman Reed Hastings. His addition follows the February appointment of Chris Liddell, a former Microsoft executive, making Narasimhan the second new board member this year.
The Anthropic Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent organization whose members hold no financial interest in the company, selected Narasimhan for the position. Reports suggest Anthropic may pursue a public stock offering potentially as soon as this year.
In a LinkedIn message, Narasimhan shared his perspective on technology’s role in healthcare advancement. “Working across medicine, innovation, and global health has helped me realize that technology creates the most value when it’s deployed responsibly,” he wrote.
The Novartis leader highlighted artificial intelligence’s current impact on medical research and drug development. “In healthcare AI is already accelerating some of our hardest scientific challenges – from deepening our understanding of disease biology to helping identify promising targets and design better medicines. But speed alone isn’t the goal,” Narasimhan explained, adding “what matters just as much is how these tools are built, governed, and ultimately applied in the real world.”
