Novo Nordisk and Anthropic are bringing Claude into research workflows to help scientists explore biological questions and develop new medicines faster
Bagsværd, Denmark, 1 October 2026 – Drug discovery can take years, with researchers moving through large amounts of biological data, testing scientific ideas, analyzing results, and preparing detailed documentation. Artificial intelligence is now becoming part of that process, and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is taking another step in that direction through a collaboration with Anthropic.
The companies announced their partnership in September to explore how Anthropic’s Claude models, including Claude Science, can support Novo Nordisk’s research and development activities. The initial work will focus on specific scientific challenges and workflows where artificial intelligence could help researchers reason through complex problems and accelerate parts of the drug discovery process.
The idea is not to replace scientists. Instead, AI is being introduced as a tool that can help research teams handle complex tasks, examine information, develop software, and explore scientific questions more efficiently. Novo Nordisk plans to work with Anthropic to create targeted solutions based on challenges identified by its scientists and computational teams.
One important area is biological reasoning. Understanding how diseases develop and how medicines interact with the human body requires researchers to connect information from many scientific fields. AI systems can help organize and analyze large amounts of information, potentially giving researchers another way to investigate biological mechanisms and identify promising research directions.
Novo Nordisk is also planning to use Anthropic’s models for AI driven software development. This could help the company expand digital tools used across research and development and make it easier for teams to build solutions for specific scientific and operational needs.
The partnership builds on Novo Nordisk’s existing use of artificial intelligence. The company has already used Claude to automate the creation of clinical trial reports, reducing documentation timelines from months to minutes, according to Anthropic and industry reporting. The company has also been developing other AI partnerships as it expands the use of technology across its operations.
Anthropic is also increasing its focus on scientific applications for Claude. The company recently reported that Claude Science helped optimize more than 30 open source biomolecular modeling systems in less than four weeks, with the optimized models running about four times faster on average.
For pharmaceutical research, speed matters, but accuracy and responsible use are equally important. Novo Nordisk and Anthropic said their collaboration includes data governance and human oversight to ensure AI applications follow ethical and compliance requirements. Scientists will therefore remain central to reviewing and applying the technology.
The collaboration reflects a wider shift in the pharmaceutical industry toward AI powered drug discovery. As these technologies develop, their value will depend on how effectively researchers combine computational tools with scientific expertise, laboratory testing, clinical evidence, and human judgment.
