Business

Novo expands AI drug discovery push with Anthropic’s Claude Science collaboration

Novo expands AI drug discovery push with Anthropic’s Claude Science collaboration

Novo Nordisk (Copenhagen: NOVO B) and Anthropic have announced a research collaboration that will deploy Anthropic's Claude Science platform and frontier AI models across Novo's drug discovery and development workflows. The agreement gives Novo access to Anthropic's scientific reasoning tools to address specific biological and computational challenges identified by its R&D teams, and separately applies Anthropic's frontier models to accelerate AI-driven software engineering within the company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The collaboration centers on Claude Science, Anthropic's drug-discovery workbench that integrates tools including PubMed, Jupyter, and R into a unified platform covering genomics, structural biology, proteomics, and cheminformatics. Novo said it will initially test Claude Science on targeted R&D workflows where the combined capabilities of both organizations are expected to have the greatest impact, with an initial focus on biological reasoning and multi-step research tasks. No specific drug program or molecular target is named; the deal is a platform-level arrangement rather than an asset-specific partnership.

The companies said the collaboration incorporates data governance controls and human oversight mechanisms consistent with Novo's compliance standards. Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said AI tools could "compress the path from research to marketed product" and open new scientific opportunities in understanding human biology and drug mechanics. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the collaboration is built to shorten research timelines and improve outcomes through access to frontier models.

The AllSci BriefFree, systematic R&D and deal news. Daily.

The Novo–Anthropic deal is Novo's third major AI platform collaboration in under six months. Novo partnered with OpenAI in April 2026 for enterprise-wide AI integration spanning drug discovery, manufacturing, and commercial operations, and named Amazon Web Services its preferred strategic cloud and AI partner in August 2026. For Anthropic, the agreement extends a pharma partnership strategy that already includes Bristol Myers Squibb, which deployed Claude to more than 30,000 employees in May 2026, and follows Anthropic's reported April 2026 acquisition of stealth drug-discovery biotech Coefficient Bio for approximately USD 400 million.


Access the AllSci platform to explore the science behind the news.


Spot something wrong? Report an issue with this article