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DeepSeek
Pharmaceutical industryDeepSeek for pharmaceutical industry
Open-weight (MIT) Chinese language model with a 1M context window and a built-in reasoning mode, at very low API costs.
DeepSeek is not on our list for the pharmaceutical industry. Usable for general work, but first look at the options we recommend for the pharmaceutical industry.
- GDPR profileOur summary of what the provider itself publishes about your data: EU hosting possible, no training on your data for business use, and self-hosting available. Caution applies to a model with a documented problem, such as an investigation by a regulator. How we measure
- GDPR: Caution
- QualityQuality from blind duels on LMArena: users choose between two anonymous answers. A difference of about 20 points is noticeable, a few points is noise. How we measure
- 1475Elo, independent
- Editorial scoreOur own assessment on 10 of suitability for professional work, price and privacy. This is a judgement, not a measurement; that is why it always sits alongside the Elo. How we measure
- 7,4
- Entry price
- Free
What DeepSeek does in the pharmaceutical industry
- Finding and optimising targets, proteins and candidate molecules with AI models
- Setting up clinical studies: recruiting patients, recording source data and monitoring data quality
- Drafting regulatory documents (protocols, CSRs, dossiers) with traceable sources
- Processing adverse event reports, coding them and detecting safety signals
- Very low API costs
- Open weights (MIT), self-hostable
- Strong at reasoning, maths and code
- Large context window (1M tokens)
DeepSeek has a specific GDPR concern. The DeepSeek service stores personal data in China and was blocked by the Italian regulator in 2025. Not recommended for regulated sectors unless you host the model yourself within the EU. Weigh this heavily before deploying it in the pharmaceutical industry.
Confidentiality and GDPR
GDPR: CautionThis sector involves health data of trial participants and patients (special category personal data under Article 9 GDPR) and confidential research data. Ask every provider where the data is stored and whether it is used to train models: Castor hosts in the Netherlands (Google Cloud europe-west4) and does not share data or models between customers, Cradle states that source data never goes to third-party AI models, Iris.ai hosts on AWS in Ireland and Germany. Biolevate and Ennov also run in private cloud or on-premises. With Veeva Vault AI and Yseop, texts go to Anthropic models via Amazon Bedrock; check the region and the data processing agreement. If you work in GxP processes, an AI tool must also be validated (EU GMP Annex 11) and a competent employee remains responsible. For AI in medicines development, the EMA has a reflection paper (2024) and is working with the FDA on joint principles.
The DeepSeek service stores data in China and uses it for training by default (with an opt-out). Only an EU self-hosted variant of the open weights is defensible for sensitive data.
Prices
Other models for the pharmaceutical industry
Claude for the pharmaceutical industryAnthropic · editorial 9.01506
Gemini for the pharmaceutical industryGoogle · editorial 8.61526
ChatGPT for the pharmaceutical industryOpenAI · edition 8.91485
Copilot for the pharmaceutical industryMicrosoft · editorial 8.31485We do not know of a professional tool for the pharmaceutical industry that publicly runs on DeepSeek.
Questions about DeepSeek for the pharmaceutical industry
- Is DeepSeek suitable for the pharmaceutical industry?
- Not specifically. DeepSeek is not on our list for the pharmaceutical industry; it is broadly usable, but first look at the options we recommend for the pharmaceutical industry. Keep a professional in the loop for every deployment.
- May I put confidential data into DeepSeek?
- This sector involves health data of trial participants and patients (special category personal data under Art. 9 GDPR) and confidential research data. Ask every provider where the data is stored and whether it is used to train models: Castor hosts in the Netherlands (Google Cloud europe-west4) and does not share data or models between customers, Cradle states that source data never reaches third-party AI models, Iris.ai hosts on AWS in Ireland and Germany. Biolevate and Ennov also run in private cloud or on-premises. For Veeva Vault AI and Yseop, texts go to models from Anthropic via Amazon Bedrock; check the region and the data processing agreement. If you work in GxP processes, an AI tool must also be validated (EU GMP Annex 11) and a competent person remains responsible. For AI in drug development, the EMA has a reflection paper (2024) and works with the FDA on joint principles. The DeepSeek service stores data in China and uses it for training by default (with opt-out). Only an EU self-hosted variant of the open weights is defensible for sensitive data.
- What does DeepSeek cost?
- There is Chat / app (Free), Self-hosted (Free), API (V4.1-Flash) ($0.15 / 1M in), API (V4-Pro) ($0.66 / 1M in). Check current prices on the official site.
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