OpenAI plans to invest in AI-driven drug development in exchange for royalties
Kyiv • UNN
OpenAI is considering investing in pharmaceutical companies that use its AI for drug discovery, in exchange for royalties. This would cover the costs of computing power and provide a share of future discoveries.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company is considering a direct investment model in pharmaceutical firms that use its technologies to create new treatments. Speaking at a Cisco Systems Inc. conference in San Francisco on February 3, the head of the ChatGPT developer noted that such an approach would allow the company to cover the enormous costs of computing power in exchange for a share of future scientific discoveries. This is reported by UNN.
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Sam Altman suggested that OpenAI could subsidize the use of its advanced artificial intelligence models for partners in the medical industry. In exchange, the tech giant plans to receive royalties from patents or the commercialization of drugs discovered with the help of AI.
Although no such official partnerships currently exist, Altman emphasized that large-scale scientific research requires so much capital that OpenAI sees itself as a strategic investor.
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The CEO's comments complement recent statements by the company's CFO, Sarah Friar, at the Davos forum. She hinted at the implementation of a "value-sharing" model, where OpenAI would receive a percentage of revenue for intellectual property created using its software.
"We're not doing that right now, but I think the frontier of scientific discovery with AI will require so much capital that in some of these cases, we will consider ourselves an investor."
At the same time, he assured that these innovations would not affect ordinary customers who use the API for standard tasks, emphasizing that their developments remain exclusively their property. OpenAI is currently competing with Google and Anthropic for leadership in the medical sector, where AI is already used for molecular analysis and processing of personal medical data.
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