Those efforts from the AI Innovation Lab generally coalesce around two areas: AI exploration, which involves tackling some of the hardest challenges within life sciences, very specific projects, starting with generative chemistry and optimizing cell and gene therapies at scale. The second area is AI empowerment, which Bodson said is a Microsoft term centered on enabling every person to harness AI in their own special and custom ways to reason over diverse information and unlock valuable new insights as they simultaneously reimagine ways to achieve those results more rapidly and at lower cost.

The top 10 pharma companies have all collaborated with or acquired AI technologies: Novartis, Roche, Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, GSK, Sanofi, Abbvie, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson. Reports projecting where the industry would be in terms of artificial intelligence (AI) in 2020 predicted that AI and machine learning were set to transform the pharmaceutical industry … in the near future. Rock Health has monitored investments within the digital health ecosphere since 2011, and it reports that investments have started to shift into the pharmaceutical arena, mostly within the categories of R&D, clinical trials, and digital therapeutics, which includes using AI. According to a 2017 report by Pharma IQ, 95% of the pharma professionals surveyed expected the impact of intelligent enterprise technologies to take hold in the wider drug development industry over the next three years, with one-fifth of the respondents believing that the industry was on the cusp of a revolution. The cusp is here now and will continue to grow into 2020.

Disclaimer This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that can generally be identified by words such as "to transform," "multiyear," "commitment," "to found," "aims," "vision," "potential," "can," "will," "plan," "expect," "anticipate," "committed," or similar terms, or regarding the development or adoption of potentially transformational technologies and business models and the collaboration with Microsoft; or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the healthcare products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from collaboration with Microsoft or such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the collaboration with Microsoft will achieve any or all of its intended goals or objectives, or in any particular time frame.

Novartis and Microsoft have announced a new collaboration in order to "transform medicine with artificial intelligence." Novartis announced the "important step in reimagining medicine" by founding the Novartis AI innovation lab, choosing Microsoft as its strategic AI and data-science partner. The company says that the new lab aims to bolster Novartis AI capabilities from research through commercialisation and help accelerate the discovery and development of transformative medicines for patients worldwide. As part of the strategic collaboration announced, Novartis and Microsoft have committed to a multi-year research and development effort which will focus on AI empowerment and AI exploration, using the power of AI to tackle some of the hardest computational challenges within life sciences, starting with generative chemistry, image segmentation & analysis for smart and personalised delivery of therapies and optimisation of cell and gene therapies at scale. The companies also announced that they will "collaborate to develop and apply next-generation AI platforms and processes that support future programs across these two focus areas," with the overall investment including project funding, subject-matter experts, technology, and tools.

Novartis and Microsoft announced they are joining forces to apply artificial intelligence to some of the most intractable problems in healthcare, in one of the most expansive tie-ups so far between big pharma and big tech. Under one part of the five-year agreement, which will be reviewed annually, Microsoft will work on new tools intended to make it easier to apply AI to all areas of the Swiss pharmaceutical company's business, from finance to manufacturing. A second part of the work will focus on using deep learning -- the technique that has brought the biggest recent advances in AI -- to improve the speed and precision with which it develops new medicines. Vas Narasimhan, Novartis' chief executive, suggested Tuesday that AI could hold particular promise in the field of personalized medicine, helping to identify subgroups of patients most likely to benefit from new treatments. The pharmaceutical industry, initially slow to recognize the potential of digital technologies, has been picking up the pace in recent years, with companies including GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi exploring how big data can accelerate research and development.