"Superpower Charge": Novo Nordisk bets on OpenAI in confrontation with Eli Lilly

The developer of weight loss drugs Novo Nordisk, which has fallen from the top of the list of Europe's most expensive companies to the second ten, has decided to implement OpenAI's artificial intelligence technologies everywhere. The management of the Danish company expects that neural networks will help to significantly speed up the drug development process.

Pilot programs will start in R&D, production and commercial Novo units. The pharma company plans to complete the integration of OpenAI AI technologies by the end of 2026. The initiative aims to identify therapeutic targets faster and design clinical trials more efficiently, as well as improve the company's analysis of accumulated data, Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Dustdar said. He compared the upcoming changes to the transition from faxes to e-mail, Bloomberg reports. The deal with OpenAI is not "about replacing scientists, it's about energizing them with superpowers," assured Dustdar, who first laid off about 9,000 employees after taking office.

Novo is looking to increase speed from drug development to production planning to regain share in the highly competitive market for obesity drugs that mimic the effects of the GLP-1 hormone. Although the Danish company was the first to bring them to the shelves, it has recently been losing the battle to US pharma giant Eli Lilly. Novo hopes to regain lost ground with a tablet form of Wegovy, launched in January, as well as a line of next-generation drugs, CNBC points out.

Eli Lilly is also applying AI to drug development. In January 2026, the pharma giant agreed with Nvidia to create a supercomputer lab for $1 billion. At the same time, Eli Lilly signed an agreement with startup Chai Discovery to use its AI model to develop biologics.

However, the payoff will not come soon, Diogo Rau, Eli Lilly's CIO, emphasized in a conversation with Forbes. According to him, such drugs will be on the market by the mid to late 2030s, and this is "a big bet on the future," and hopes of creating drugs in 6-18 months are unjustified. "This is one of the most overestimated timescales, and it carries a serious risk of undermining confidence in AI in the industry," he warned.

At the same time, AI is helping Eli Lilly produce already developed drugs. The company uses a virtual replica of a plant to test improvements. "Last year we produced more products than we could have without the use of AI," Rau said. He admitted that the results exceeded expectations, "We thought it was too good to be true, but the physical world matched the digital twin."

Quotes of Novo Nordisk on April 14 jumped by 3.5% at the auction in Copenhagen. On the stock exchange in New York, the securities of the manufacturer Ozempic traded in the plus by 2.8%. Shares of Eli Lilly added 0.5%.

The Danish company's market value has collapsed 42.5% over the past 12 months, while the capitalization of its U.S. rival has risen 23% over the same period.

In the confrontation between the pioneer and the market leader of weight loss drugs, Wall Street is betting on Eli Lilly. According to FactSet data, the consensus rating of the American manufacturer's shares is "above the market" (Overweight, 29 recommendations to buy out of 35), and the average target price of $1240.72 per unit implies a 33% growth of quotations. The consensus on the securities of the Danish competitor comes down to the recommendation not to sell, but also not to buy the shares (Hold), despite the potential for their growth by a quarter - up to $47.45.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor