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Novo Nordisk is expanding its use of artificial intelligence in pharmaceutical research through a collaboration with Anthropic, the company behind AI assistant Claude. The two companies aim to use advanced AI models to accelerate both drug discovery and targeted software development.

Under the collaboration, Novo Nordisk will use Anthropic's AI models, including Claude Science, to support scientific research and reasoning across its R&D organization. The partnership will also explore the use of AI-powered software engineering to help Novo scale its broader AI capabilities.

The companies plan to work together on some of the scientific challenges identified by Novo Nordisk's researchers and computational teams. Their initial work will focus on developing targeted AI solutions for specific research workflows, particularly those requiring biological reasoning and analysis.

For Novo Nordisk, the collaboration forms part of a broader strategy to make AI a more central component of pharmaceutical research and operations.

“This partnership is another testament to our ambition to become the world's most AI-driven healthcare company,” said Mike Doustdar, President and CEO of Novo Nordisk.

According to Doustdar, AI could help improve productivity across R&D while shortening the time required to move discoveries from research into marketed medicines. He also highlighted the potential for advanced AI systems to create new opportunities for understanding human biology and how medicines work.

As an initial step, Novo Nordisk will test Claude Science in selected R&D workflows. The companies will focus on scientific problems where combining Novo Nordisk's pharmaceutical expertise with Anthropic's AI capabilities could deliver significant value.

Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said increasingly capable AI systems could substantially accelerate progress in biological and medical research.

The collaboration will also extend beyond scientific research. Novo Nordisk plans to use Anthropic's frontier AI models to strengthen software development, which the company views as an important capability for scaling AI across its organisation.

AI moves deeper into pharmaceutical R&D

The partnership highlights the growing role of generative and agentic AI in pharmaceutical research. Rather than being used solely to analyse information, increasingly capable AI systems are being explored for tasks involving scientific reasoning, software development and complex research workflows.

For pharmaceutical companies, the potential value lies in using these systems alongside human researchers to analyse large volumes of scientific information, explore research questions and support decision-making throughout the drug-development process.

Novo Nordisk and Anthropic say the collaboration will operate under robust data-governance measures and human oversight, with the use of AI aligned with Novo Nordisk's ethical and compliance requirements.

The partnership adds another major technology collaboration to Novo Nordisk's efforts to integrate AI across its business and advance its ambition of becoming a more AI-driven healthcare company.