Vas Narasimhan has been appointed to Anthropic's Board of Directors by the Anthropic Long-Term Benefit Trust. He is a physician-scientist and the Chief Executive Officer of Novartis-one of the world's leading innovative medicines companies-and shares Anthropic's belief that healthcare and life sciences are among the domains where AI holds the greatest potential to enhance human life.
Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President of Anthropic, noted that Narasimhan brings a rare perspective to the board, having overseen the development and approval of more than 35 novel medicines for patients worldwide in one of the most heavily regulated industries. She emphasized that safely delivering powerful new technology to people at scale is a central focus at Anthropic, and that Narasimhan has been doing precisely that for years.
Anthropic is a Public Benefit Corporation whose Board is elected by stockholders and the Long-Term Benefit Trust, as described in Anthropic's announcement about the Trust. The Trust is an independent body whose members hold no financial stake in Anthropic, and it exists to keep the company's governance responsibly balanced between financial success and Anthropic's public benefit mission of developing AI for humanity's long-term benefit. With Narasimhan's appointment, Trust-appointed directors now constitute a majority of the Board. Narasimhan joins Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Yasmin Razavi, Jay Kreps, Reed Hastings, and Chris Liddell on the Board of Directors.
Neil "Buddy" Shah, Chair of Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, stated that the Trust's role is to appoint directors who ensure Anthropic responsibly balances its obligations to stockholders with its public benefit mission as the company scales. He highlighted that Narasimhan has spent his career stewarding breakthrough science responsibly, which is exactly the perspective they sought for the board as Anthropic develops consequential technology.
Narasimhan expressed that his experience across medicine, innovation, and global health has demonstrated the transformative potential of technology when deployed responsibly. He noted that in healthcare, AI is accelerating solutions to some of the most difficult scientific challenges-from deepening understanding of disease biology to designing better medicines. He added that Anthropic is setting the standard for how AI should be developed to benefit humanity, and that he is honored to join the Board and contribute to that mission.
Earlier in his career, Narasimhan worked on HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis programs in India, Africa, and South America, and he continues to advocate for access and global health priorities today. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves on the University of Chicago board of trustees and the board of fellows at Harvard Medical School. He previously chaired the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, where he remains on the board of directors.