Novo looks to Anthropic’s AI models to ‘supercharge’ drug development

 

• Novo Nordisk on Wednesday said it has entered a collaboration with Anthropic designed to speed the discovery and development of new medications with the use of artificial intelligence.
• The Danish company didn’t disclose any financial details for the partnership. It said the two companies will work together to identify challenges in drug development and come up with solutions. “Joining forces with Anthropic will supercharge our R&D organization,” Novo CEO Mike Doustdar said in a statement.
• An initial project will test Claude Science on specific research and development workflows where the companies expect to have the “greatest impact,” according to Novo. The drugmaker also expects to use Anthropic’s frontier models to strengthen software development, allowing it to scale up the use of AI across the company.
Pharmaceutical companies are racing to harness the potentially revolutionary power of AI in identifying the best experimental medicines for investment. Along the way, they’ve engaged in something of a war of superlatives.

For Novo, the Anthropic announcement will build on its work “to become the world’s most AI-driven healthcare company.” Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Roche have all announced collaborations with Nvidia that they claim will give them the most powerful, largest or best supercomputing powers.

The companies are also looking at specific AI tools. In May, for example, Bristol Myers announced its own deal with Anthropic, saying it planned to allow Claude to tap all of its institutional knowledge. Merck & Co., Takeda and Lilly have entered AI-centered deals potentially worth $1 billion or more with Google Cloud, Iambic Therapeutics and Insilico Medicine.

Novo’s announcement comes after the drugmaker said in April it would partner with OpenAI to integrate AI tools into every step of its operations. With Anthropic, Novo envisions using AI models to “advance scientific reasoning” in R&D and agentic software engineering, among other benefits.

Though the use of AI in drug discovery and development holds great promise, there are plenty of challenges in adopting the technology. Large language models can be susceptible to errors, and some experts warn that expectations are greatly exceeding the benefits seen so far. There are also increasing concerns about guardrails for what could become a dangerous technology.

Novo nodded toward some of the concerns with AI in its statement Wednesday. “The collaboration has been designed with robust data governance and human oversight, helping ensure AI is applied responsibly and in line with Novo’s ethical and compliance standards,” the company said.

https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/novo-anthropic-ai-drug-discovery-development-deal/830540/