Novo is expanding its artificial-intelligence strategy through a new partnership with Anthropic that will deploy Claude Science and other frontier AI models across drug discovery, biological research, and software development. The pharmaceutical company intends to use Claude to help scientists tackle difficult research problems, analyze complex biological questions, improve development workflows, and potentially shorten the long path between identifying a promising drug candidate and bringing a medicine to patients. The partnership builds on Novo’s existing use of Claude for clinical and regulatory documentation, where the company says AI has already compressed some processes that previously took months into minutes. The move also reflects a much broader pharmaceutical race to integrate advanced AI into research and development, as drugmakers search for ways to reduce costs, eliminate repetitive work, identify promising compounds sooner, and improve the notoriously low success rate of experimental medicines. Financial terms and specific drug targets were not disclosed, and despite the considerable promise surrounding AI-assisted drug discovery, the industry has yet to demonstrate that generative AI can routinely translate computational gains into approved medicines. Novo says the effort will retain human oversight, data governance, and compliance safeguards while pursuing its ambition of becoming one of the world’s most AI-driven healthcare companies.
Key Takeaways
- Novo will initially test Claude Science in selected R&D workflows, pairing Anthropic’s AI capabilities with scientific problems identified by Novo researchers and computational teams, while also deploying frontier models to strengthen AI-assisted software engineering.
- The collaboration moves Claude beyond administrative automation toward scientific reasoning and drug discovery. Novo has already used Claude to automate clinical-trial documentation, with some previously lengthy documentation processes reportedly reduced from weeks or months to minutes.
- The deal is part of an escalating pharmaceutical AI competition involving major drugmakers and technology companies, but the real test remains whether AI can move beyond impressive productivity gains and computational experiments to produce better drug candidates, higher clinical success rates, and ultimately approved medicines.
In-Depth
Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from the pharmaceutical back office into the laboratory. Novo’s new collaboration with Anthropic represents that transition, putting Claude Science directly against scientific problems involved in discovering and developing medicines.
The companies plan to combine Novo researchers’ biological and pharmaceutical expertise with Claude’s reasoning capabilities. Scientists and computational teams will identify specific drug-development problems, while the partners build targeted AI tools capable of assisting with biological reasoning, research workflows and software development. Novo CEO Mike Doustdar argues that AI could do more than increase efficiency, potentially creating new ways of understanding human biology and drug mechanisms.
There is already evidence that the technology can eliminate extraordinary amounts of administrative friction. Novo has used Claude to automate clinical documentation, and Anthropic says one documentation workflow fell from more than 10 weeks to roughly 10 minutes. Such productivity gains matter in an industry where regulatory paperwork, data analysis and repeated documentation consume substantial scientific resources.
The larger question is whether AI can improve the science itself. Drug discovery remains expensive, slow and failure-prone, and computational sophistication does not guarantee that a molecule will prove safe and effective in humans. That makes Novo’s expansion particularly significant: Claude is being asked not merely to write documents faster but to assist scientists confronting biological problems.
That is a considerably higher bar. If AI can reliably improve candidate selection, experimental design and biological understanding while preserving rigorous human review, the technology could become a powerful force for reducing pharmaceutical development costs and timelines. The marketplace—not corporate promises—will ultimately determine whether those gains translate into better medicines.
Sources
- https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/novo-partners-with-anthropic-speed-up-drug-development-with-claude-2026-09-16/
- https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-anthropic-ai-drug-discovery-development-deal/830540/
- https://www.euronews.com/health/2026/09/16/danish-pharma-giant-novo-to-use-anthropics-claude-to-advance-ai-drug-discovery