Amgen Grows Microsoft Copilot From a Small Test Group to 20,000 Employees and Builds Generative Biology Models With NVIDIA

Amgen, the biotechnology company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California, has been integrating AI tools across the company under its first chief technology officer, David Reese. "We're living through a 'hinge moment,' merging tech and biotech to revolutionize drug discovery and development, manufacturing and commercialization," Reese said. Amgen has also published an Artificial Intelligence Vision with commitments to build trustworthy AI tools and use them responsibly. The most widespread use is productivity tools that employees use in their everyday work, with the goal of reducing manual, repetitive tasks so staff can spend more time on higher-level problems. Amgen was an early adopter of Microsoft Copilot, and what started as a small group of employees experimenting with it grew to 20,000 employees with access. "Adopting Copilot and generative AI is important for Amgen and our industry," said chief information officer Mike Zahigian. "Every second counts in our mission to serve patients. Any time we can reclaim is invaluable." Amgen's use of Copilot was featured at the 2024 Microsoft Build conference in Seattle. In the lab, Amgen uses technology from companies such as NVIDIA to build AI models for generative biology: models of protein-based molecules designed to interact with specific disease targets, followed by simulations that predict which designs will be safest and most effective in humans. Scientists can run millions of these simulations at a time to narrow down the most promising molecules for real-world testing. Reese said emerging technologies are cutting the time it takes a scientist to find, analyse and aggregate data from days and weeks to moments. Amgen also installed an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD supercomputer named Freyja at its subsidiary deCODE genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, which holds about 200 petabytes of deidentified human data. Amgen says the system lets it mine that data for biological insights that could lead to new drug development programmes for serious diseases.