Novo Nordisk, the Danish drugmaker behind blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, is partnering with Anthropic to use artificial intelligence for drug research.
Novo said Wednesday it would use Anthropic's science-specific platform, known as Claude Science, to help speed up the discovery and development of new medicines and strengthen the pharmaceutical company's software development.
The partnership is the latest by a slate of major drugmakers, including Eli Lilly, Merck and Roche, that are placing big bets that AI can help them discover and produce medicines more quickly.
"AI can help us increase productivity in R&D and compress the path from research to marketed product. But beyond this, AI tools can also offer completely new scientific opportunities and aid reasoning and understanding of human biology and drug mechanics," Novo Chief Executive Mike Doustdar said.
AI promises to help drug researchers solve some of the most intractable issues in biology, using its powers to find new ways to fight serious diseases. Yet despite the investments, companies' bets on the technology haven't paid off to date.
While some AI-discovered candidates are being tested in humans, AI has yet to produce an approved drug. So far, some industry officials say, the sector has seen the biggest direct benefits of AI in automating routine work, like synthesizing research, analyzing large datasets and designing human studies.
"You can leverage AI on both sides, on creating more sales, being faster, finding more patients, and on the other side, becoming more efficient and being able, therefore, to do more with less," Ipsen CEO David Lowe told The Wall Street Journal last month.
Companies are also finding it useful in identifying patients with conditions who could participate in drug studies.
Other companies have found it particularly useful in identifying patients with genetically-driven rare diseases that might appear in large scans of electronic health records, said Bill Coyle, the region managing principal for Europe for global consulting and technology firm ZS.
"You have known diagnoses, and could essentially find patterns in claims data, and create algorithms that you would then pull those out," said Coyle.
Novo has entered into several partnerships with the aim of speeding up the discovery and development of new drugs through AI. Earlier this year, the Danish drugmaker said it would work with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, and created an AI innovation hub with Amazon Web Services.
As part of the partnership with Anthropic, Novo will test Claude Science to help address scientific problems, it said. The drugmaker also plans to use Anthropic's models to strengthen AI-driven software development, it added.
"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," said Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of Anthropic.
A spokesman for Novo didn't provide specifics on the terms of the deal or which drug-discovery programs they might target.