Novo Nordisk Taps Anthropic's Claude to 'Supercharge' AI-Driven Drug Discovery
核心洞察
Novo Nordisk has entered a collaboration with Anthropic (搜索) to apply artificial intelligence across its drug discovery and development workflows, with no financial terms disclosed.
The Danish drugmaker will initially test Anthropic (搜索)'s Claude Science (搜索) on selected R&D workflows where the partners expect the greatest scientific impact.
Novo will also use Anthropic (搜索)'s frontier models to strengthen AI-driven software development, which it calls a key enabler for scaling AI company-wide.
Novo Nordisk said Wednesday it has entered a collaboration with Anthropic (搜索) to speed the discovery and development of new medicines using artificial intelligence, the latest in a series of technology partnerships the Danish drugmaker has struck in 2026.
The companies did not disclose financial details of the partnership. Under the arrangement, they will work together to identify challenges in drug development and develop solutions, with Novo's scientists and computational teams defining the scientific problems to be addressed. "Joining forces with Anthropic (搜索) will supercharge our R&D organization," Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said in a statement.
Claude Science Tested in Selected R&D Workflows
As an initial project, Novo will test Anthropic (搜索)'s Claude Science (搜索) on specific research and development workflows where the companies expect to have the "greatest impact," according to Novo. The collaboration is designed to support biological reasoning and target scientific problems where the joint capabilities of both organizations are expected to deliver meaningful acceleration.
Beyond drug discovery, Novo expects to use Anthropic (搜索)'s frontier models to strengthen software development, allowing it to scale up the use of AI across the company. The partnership includes robust data governance and human oversight intended to ensure AI is applied responsibly and in line with Novo's ethical and compliance standards.
Doustdar framed the collaboration as more than a productivity play. "AI can help us increase productivity in R&D and compress the path from research to marketed product. But beyond this, AI tools can also offer completely new scientific opportunities and aid reasoning and understanding of human biology and drug mechanics," he said.
Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic (搜索), described the potential scale of the technology's impact: "AI's increasing capability brings with it the potential to compress a century's worth of biological and medical breakthroughs into a decade." He added that giving leading researchers access to safe, capable and trusted frontier models could shorten research timelines, improve outcomes and uncover medicines and treatments that significantly improve human life.
Third Major AI Partnership of 2026
The Anthropic (搜索) deal is the third major AI partnership Novo has announced this year. In April, the company announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI (搜索) aimed at applying advanced AI to analyze complex datasets, identify promising drug candidates and reduce the time required to move from research to patient. That agreement was similarly structured with data protection, governance and human oversight provisions, and includes work on upskilling Novo's global workforce and improving efficiency in manufacturing, supply chain, distribution and corporate operations.
In August, Novo and Amazon Web Services (搜索) announced a strategic partnership to accelerate drug discovery and modernize operations through agentic AI and cloud technologies. The companies created a co-innovation hub in London where engineers and scientists from both organizations use AWS AI technologies alongside Novo data and insights to compress the path from drug target to first human dose. Novo selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider and strategic AI partner, and said it has already seen measurable results, including reduced clinical documentation time and productivity gains for more than 25,000 employees. The company is using services such as Amazon Bio Discovery and Amazon Bedrock to identify drug targets, design new therapies faster and connect genomic, imaging and clinical data.
Novo has also previously used Claude to automate trial report generation, trimming timelines for patient documentation creation from months to minutes, according to Reuters.
A Competitive Field of AI Alliances
Pharmaceutical companies are racing to harness AI in identifying the best experimental medicines for investment, and the announcements have grown increasingly competitive in tone. Bristol Myers Squibb (搜索), Eli Lilly and Roche have each announced collaborations with Nvidia (搜索) that they claim will give them the most powerful, largest or best supercomputing capabilities.
Several drugmakers have pursued Anthropic (搜索) specifically. In May, Bristol Myers Squibb (搜索) announced its own deal with Anthropic, saying it planned to allow Claude to tap all of its institutional knowledge. Merck & Co. (搜索), Takeda and Lilly have entered AI-centered deals potentially worth $1 billion or more with Google Cloud (搜索), Iambic Therapeutics (搜索) and Insilico Medicine (搜索), respectively.
Anthropic (搜索) is expanding its life sciences footprint in parallel. In May 2026, the company announced a collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb (搜索) to deploy Claude across the company's research, clinical development, manufacturing, commercial and corporate functions.
Novo's broader AI infrastructure push predates the Anthropic (搜索) deal. In 2024, the Novo Nordisk Foundation partnered with Nvidia (搜索) and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark to establish the Danish Centre for AI Innovation (搜索), which operates Gefion, described as Denmark's first AI-ready supercomputer.
Adoption Challenges Remain
Despite the enthusiasm, the use of AI in drug discovery and development faces significant hurdles. Large language models can be susceptible to errors, and some experts warn that expectations are greatly exceeding the benefits seen so far. There are also increasing concerns about guardrails for what could become a dangerous technology, and AI industry leaders remain split over how fast companies should develop increasingly powerful systems.
Novo's stated ambition is to become "the world's most AI-driven healthcare company," a goal Doustdar said the Anthropic (搜索) partnership furthers. "This partnership is another testament to our ambition to become the world's most AI-driven healthcare company, building on Novo's current AI initiatives with other technology partners," he said.