Ozempic-maker turns to Anthropic to turbocharge medical research

Novo and Anthropic announced today a collaboration to accelerate the development of new medicines and AI-driven software.

The news landed hours after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke about the benefits of AI in health care — and days after tech bros warned there is a 10% likely existential threat to all humanity from super AI within the next decade.

Anthopic also revealed last week scientists have tried to use Claude to develop bioweapons.

That’s not deterring Novo, however.

The Danish pharma giant said it would use the American artificial intelligence company’s models and Claude Science to advance its research as it aims to become “the world’s most AI-driven healthcare company.”

“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,” Mike Doustdar, CEO of Novo, which has shortened its name from Novo Nordisk, said in a statement. “AI tools can also offer completely new scientific opportunities and aid reasoning and understanding of human biology and drug mechanics.”

Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said using frontier AI models would shorten research timelines. “AI’s increasing capability brings with it the potential to compress a century’s worth of biological and medical breakthroughs into a decade,” he said. 

There will be “robust data governance and human oversight,” the statement added. 

Earlier today, von der Leyen used her State of the EU speech to say Europe needed to use AI in health, pointing to examples where it could be a game-changer like in the early detection of breast cancer through AI-supported mammography.

Although she warned the technology needed to empower doctors, not replace them.