Novo will test Anthropic’s Claude Science to speed up drug discovery

“Joining forces with Anthropic will supercharge our R&D organisation and help us on our mission to bring new, transformative health solutions to people living with chronic diseases,” said Mike Doustdar, president and chief executive of Novo.

The Danish drugmaker, formerly branded Novo Nordisk, and Anthropic announced a collaboration on 16 September, according to Novo’s announcement. Novo will use Anthropic’s AI models and Claude Science to discover and develop new medicines faster.

What the two companies will do

The companies will work on drug discovery problems that Novo’s scientists and computational teams have identified. They will build targeted tools for specific scientific tasks and workflows that support biological reasoning.

As a first step, Novo will test Claude Science on specific research and development workflows. Anthropic launched Claude Science in June as an AI workbench for scientists.

Novo will also use Anthropic’s frontier models for AI-driven software development.

Financial terms were not disclosed, Bloomberg reported.

“Compress a century’s worth” of breakthroughs

Doustdar said AI can help Novo increase productivity in R&D. It can also “compress the path from research to marketed product,” he said. He called the partnership “another testament to our ambition to become the world’s most AI-driven healthcare company.”

Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of Anthropic, said:

“AI’s increasing capability brings with it the potential to compress a century’s worth of biological and medical breakthroughs into a decade. By giving leading researchers access to safe, capable, and trusted frontier models, we can shorten research timelines, improve outcomes, and discover medicines and treatments that significantly improve human life. That is exactly what our collaboration with Novo is built to achieve.”

Novo said the collaboration was designed with “robust data governance and human oversight.”

Earlier in September, Anthropic detailed how Claude was misused for surveillance and weapons. In August, its risk report showed it had run contractor chats with its bioweapon filters off.

A new name, the same week

Two days earlier, on 14 September, the company changed its brand name from Novo Nordisk to Novo, CNBC reported. Novo Nordisk remains its legal name. The name dates from the 1989 merger of two Danish drugmakers.

Doustdar told CNBC that the new name and a culture shift are “part of the same package.”

“Our operating environment phenomenally changed compared to just 10 years ago,” he said.

Novo held 38.8% of the obesity drug market in the second quarter, against 60.9% for Eli Lilly. CNBC cited a Lilly presentation based on IQVIA data. Novo will set out its strategy at a Capital Markets Day on 21 September.

Other AI partners

The Anthropic deal comes months after Novo agreed to use OpenAI’s AI across the company, according to Bloomberg. Doustdar said the new partnership builds on Novo’s AI work “with other technology partners.”

Novo’s Ozempic and Wegovy face generic competition in the US and Europe early in the next decade, Bloomberg reported. Novo shares have fallen 15% this year.

Novo Holdings, the drugmaker’s owner, backed an Italian fund for drug startups in July. In September, the Novo Nordisk Foundation announced plans for a quantum chip plant in Copenhagen.