The Novo Nordisk has struck a partnership with Anthropic to use Claude models in the discovery and development of new medicines, in addition to expanding the use of artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical company's software engineering. The collaboration was announced on Wednesday (16).
The owner of Ozempic and Wegovy intends initially to test Claude Science in specific research and development workflows. The companies will also work on scientific problems identified by Novo's researchers and computational teams, focusing on tools capable of supporting reasoning about biology and drug mechanisms of action.
The agreement also provides for the development of solutions targeted at specific stages of pharmaceutical research. According to Novo, the expectation is to use AI to increase productivity in R&D and reduce the time between initial research and the arrival of new treatments on the market.
Anthropic's frontier models will also be applied to AI-driven software development, an area considered by the pharmaceutical company a necessary component for expanding the use of the technology internally. The partnership provides for data governance and human oversight for the systems adopted.
Novo had already been using Claude in other parts of its operation. The company employs the technology to automate the production of clinical trial reports and accelerate the preparation of patient-related documentation, according to information disclosed about the adoption of the models.
Novo expands network of AI partnerships
The agreement with Anthropic is part of a broader strategy by the pharmaceutical company to incorporate artificial intelligence into research and operations. In April, Novo announced a partnership with OpenAI to apply AI from drug discovery to commercial activities.
In August, the company also struck a strategic partnership with AWS, which includes a joint innovation center in London focused on the use of AI and cloud computing to reduce the time between the identification of a therapeutic target and the first tests in humans.
The new collaboration comes as major pharmaceutical companies expand investments in AI for data analysis, study design and automation of research processes. In Novo's case, the company intends to use these tools also to diversify its portfolio beyond the GLP-1-based medicines that drove its growth in recent years.
