Novo Nordisk to use AI chatbot to develop medicines

Novo Nordisk has entered into a partnership with the US AI company Anthropic, which among other things is behind the chatbot Claude. The goal is to use artificial intelligence to shorten the path from research to finished medicine.

The partnership was announced on September 16, 2026. It builds in part on a new tool from Anthropic called Claude Science, which is connected to more than 60 scientific databases in areas including genetics research and chemistry. The idea is that researchers can ask questions in plain language instead of having to search through many different databases separately. The tool was launched as a test in the summer of 2026.

Novo Nordisk will first try the tool in selected parts of its research, where the companies believe the effect could be greatest. The partnership will also be used more broadly in Novo's development of software, meaning computer programs, which the company calls an important prerequisite for using AI throughout the company.

According to the two companies, controls on data processing and human oversight are built into the partnership, so it complies with Novo's own rules on ethics and compliance.

CEOs see big benefits

Novo's CEO Mike Doustdar says AI can make research more productive and shorten the path from research to a finished product on the market. Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei points out that access to safe and reliable AI models can shorten research timelines for skilled researchers.

It's not Novo Nordisk's first step into AI-driven drug research. In April 2026, the company also struck a deal to use a science model from OpenAI, called GPT-Rosalind, to analyze large and complex datasets and find possible new drugs. Novo also already uses Claude to automate reports from clinical trials, meaning tests of medicines on humans. Here, according to the company, the time spent has been cut from months to minutes for parts of the documentation work.

Several AI vendors in play

The partnership shows a broader trend among large companies: they no longer tie themselves to just one provider of artificial intelligence, but use several different AI models for different tasks, while setting boundaries for how data is handled and ensuring that humans remain in control.

For the pharmaceutical industry, the promise is faster research and thus potentially faster access to new medicines. But neither Novo Nordisk nor Anthropic has disclosed concrete figures for how much time can be saved or what the deal costs.